1 40 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

 BIRD PROTECTION. 



A CHAPTER on the subject of bird protection is not unlikely to be received 

 with scepticism when coming from the pen of that bete noire of all fashionable 

 naturalists, the Collector. But without laying any claim to an impregnable 

 position, so far as bias is concerned, I propose, nevertheless, to make one 

 or two remarks and suggestions on a subject now so frequently discussed. 

 The persistent slaughter of birds towards the end of the last century, and 

 the consequent decrease in the number of our British species, created 

 in due time a perfectly natural and justifiable reaction ; but, as is the way 

 with all reactions, there seems at the present moment a danger of common 

 sense being swamped in a blind zeal for protection, which is likely in 

 the end to overshoot itself. Witness the recent successful protest of 

 the Aldeburgh fishermen. 



Let us see how matters actually stand. The birds of prey and the 

 Raven at the present moment are a class reduced to the verge of extinction, 

 but unless game-preservers can be induced, either by persuasion or by 

 legal penalties, to spare them, their case must be regarded as past curing 

 they are doomed. It is a thousand pities, but it is so, and if the ravages 

 of the game-preserver are to go on unchecked, the killing of an odd bird or 

 so by collectors is a matter of very small moment, after all. 



Of the remaining British birds, despite the talk on the subject, very 

 few are in real danger. Drainage and land-reclaiming have banished for 

 ever as breeding species such birds as the Ruff, the Avocet, the Black- 

 tailed Godwit, the Black Tern, the Bittern, and the Bustard. The shooting 

 of such stragglers as turn up on migration in the autumn does not make 

 the slightest difference to the chance of their breeding in England again. 

 They belong to another branch of the family, with another habitat and 

 another breeding area. 



We come next to a small class of birds which still breed sparingly 

 in the British Isles, and whose numbers, in two cases at all events, are 

 unlikely ever to be recruited from abroad. These two are the Bearded 



