UNCOMMON AND MEMOKABLE 141 



shot in the neighbourhood a few days later. Others were 

 killed in Yorkshire and on Salisbury Plain, as recorded 

 in The Field at the time. Our rare birds stand a very 

 poor chance, notwithstanding efforts at " protection " 

 with which even the Spectator will agree. 



J. W. MEAEES. 



NOTE. Why even the Spectator? Two of the best 

 accounts of this splendid bird occur in Stevenson's " Birds 

 of Norfolk," and Mr. W. H. Hudson's epitaphial " Lost 

 British Birds." Mr. G. H. Gurney's " Early Annals of 

 Ornithology " (1921) gives a full account of its historical 

 status. This is very ancient, for there are cave drawings 

 of the bird in the Neolithic cave of Tajo Segura (Cadiz 

 Province). It was once fairly common on most of the 

 moors and downlands of England and Scotland, and was 

 wiped out in the same relentless, brutal, wanton, whole- 

 sale manner in which the bison were exterminated in 

 North America, the grebes in Oregon, and the spoonbills, 

 egrets, flamingoes, etc., in Florida. The last native bird 

 was shot in 1838. A certain Turner of Wrotham earned 

 the honourable name of " otidicide " in 1812 for his 

 bustard bags. In this rakehelly fashion do we dissipate 

 our riches. 



A BLUE-TAILED BEE-EATER IN DORSET 



It is so seldom that one hears of a rare bird being taken 

 in our island and allowed to go free, that your readers 

 may be glad to hear evidence of a better spirit of love 

 for things beautiful that have life which is slowly making 

 itself felt, as against the old unthoughtful habit of killing 

 and stuffing every rare comer that hand or gun or trap 

 could lay hold of. Mrs. Butt, of " The Salterns," Park- 

 stone, on the coast between Bournemouth and Poole, 

 was going upstairs to her nursery one morning last Sep- 



