In Wildest Africa ^ 



Conference for the Protection of Wild Animals, I did my 

 best to obtain, at least on paper, some measure of protection 

 for the marabou. This bird had not only quite won my 

 heart by its extraordinary sagacity, but for the same reason 

 it was a general favourite even in the times of classical 

 antiquity. My efforts were in vain. And this will mean 

 nothing more or less than the extermination of a large and 

 handsome bird, which is comparatively easy to hunt down, 

 and the rate of increase of which is exceptionally small. 



From all these points of view the support of the 

 '' League for the Protection of Bird Life in Germany " is to 

 be warmly recommended. In England these reasons have 



bird's welcome cry, as has happened in the case of the heron and 

 the cormorant in our district. This last-named bird comes now only 

 seldom, and then only one at a time, to the Netze, near Driesen. There 

 was a heronry formerly near Waldowstrenk in the Neumark district, 

 but it disappeared ten years ago. We must hope that this will not be 

 the fate of the stork, whose appearance has so many links with the poetry 

 of our childhood, and that we shall not be deprived of his presence. 

 What a pleasing sight it is when 'Brother Longlegs ' with dignified walk 

 stalks beside the mower at haymaking time, looking so confiding and 

 fearless ! And what a joy it is to old and young when the first stork of 

 the season wheels in circles over the homestead, when for the first time he 

 comes down to his old nest, and announces his arrival with a joyful outcry ! 

 Must not every sympathetic and thoughtful lover of nature be filled with 

 sorrow and indignation when, on the pretext of petty thefts, but probably 

 out of mere wanton love of destruction, attempts are made to drive out of 

 our country this friendly bird, which is so pleasing an ornament of the 

 landscape? It would really be a crime against the out-door beauty of our 

 native land, and against nature all around us, if out of narrow-minded 

 selfishness we were to extirpate the stork, as happened in recent times 

 to that most splendidly coloured of our birds, the kingfisher, on mere 

 suspicion of its being a 'great destroyer' of fish. Love of nature, joy in 

 nature, is a valuable element in German feeling, and therefore, dear fellow 

 sportsman, let us maintain our good character ! " 



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