42 



1890, alone, over 400,000 small birds passed through the hands of 

 the customs-house officials at Brescia, and Count Salvadori 

 has shown that a single Italian " roccolo " has in twenty years 

 been responsible for the destruction of over 135,000 small birds.* 

 When one considers the number of these apparatus in North 

 Italy and the various other devices employed regularly and at 

 almost every suitable point at the season of migration, along 

 each of the recognised routes, it becomes evident that massacre 

 must take place on a scale which is too appalling to contemplate. 

 It is a second nature to the Italian to repair annually to the 

 neighbouring valley to destroy the migrating flocks of birds ; 

 yet he can only ply his trade successfully owing to the even more 

 firmly rooted hereditary instinct which leads those flocks — 

 never profiting by experience — year by year, at the same season, 

 through the same valleys. 



No discussion on the slaughter of migratory birds can omit 

 reference to the wholesale capture of Quails wliich takes place in 

 the south of Europe. This bird is a poor flyer, and, crossing the 

 Mediterranean Sea in spring at its narrowest points, arrives 

 exhausted and is easily taken. Some cross to Spain by the Straits 

 of Gibraltar, some cross the ^gean Sea to Greece and Turkey, 

 and the main body cross to Italy. Wherever they land after 

 their journey they are caught in thousands. The captures on 

 the return journey in autumn are also enormous. A large volume 

 might be written on the catching of the Quail. This bird has 

 been celebrated as an article of diet from time immemorial. 

 There has admittedly been a great reduction in their numbers, 

 and the only wonder is that any Quails exist. Some years ago 

 a well-known French naturalist, the Baron d'Hamonville, 

 wrote : "Si les gouvernements ne prennent pas des mesures 

 pour empecher cette destruction periodique la Caille dans peu 

 d'annees ne sera plus qu'a I'etat de souvenir."f Eighteen 

 years have elapsed since this was written, and still large, though 

 diminished, numbers are taken. The mortality of the birds in 

 the long narrow cages in which they are transported is sufficient 

 evidence of the misery they must endure. 



In America the Model Law, \^dth its sweeping protective 

 provisions, makes, of course, no specific reference to wholesale 

 destruction of migratory birds, but in some of the Southern States 

 hideous slaughter of certain species still takes place, and no more 

 terrible instance of the effects of the wholesale massacre of a 



* These figures are quoted from Herman's work on the Convention of 

 1902, previously referred to. Instances could be multiplied almost 

 indefinitely. See also Professor Giglioli's " Avifauna Italica," Part 

 III. (Firenze, 1891), pp. 2-36. 



f See " La Vie des Oiseaux," p. 217. 



