BIRD PROTECTION. 



141 



Tit and the Dartford Warbler; and the others that belong to somewhat 

 the same class are the Great Crested Grebe, the Dotterel, the Roseate 

 Tern, and the Chough. These birds need protection badly, and it is not 

 too late to give it them. If the existing laws concerning the close season 

 were rigorously enforced, three of them would be protected enough, as 

 they leave this country in the autumn. Special measures should be taken 

 in the case of the first two and the last. 



Our other birds may be divided into two classes. First come the 

 rarer migrants. Concerning the shooting of these stragglers there is always 

 the greatest outcry, whereas they are just the ones that matter least. 

 There is no chance of their becoming British species in the proper sense 

 of the term ; they are mostly common enough in their real habitat, and 

 the shooting of these odd birds makes no difference whatever to the chance 

 of their appearing in England another year. They have got separated 

 from their species and proper home, and are doomed. I say, without 

 hesitation, that the best fate that can befall them is to be shot by 

 someone who can appreciate their beauties. Bluethroats must often have 

 visited the Norfolk coast before Dr. Power discovered them. How many 

 people got any pleasure out of those visits ? If I meet a Dartford Warbler 

 it is to me a sacred bird, but if I meet a Bluethroat I shoot it, to present 

 it to one of the numerous institutions which are only too glad to get a 

 specimen of the bird. It is thus seen by more people than if it passed 

 another week in England on its way to a lingering death. 



Secondly, there come the bulk of our commoner birds ; I doubt whether 

 any of these have become rarer in recent years. The establishment of the 

 existing close season seems to have just met the case so far as they are 

 concerned. Birds like Hawfinches and Goldfinches are unquestionably on 

 the increase in nearly every part of England. 



Such is the situation as it stands to-day. What are the chief dangers 

 that threaten the birds, and what are the existing measures and proposals 

 designed to grapple with them ? 



Passing by as much exaggerated the danger which awaits our threatened 

 species from the amateur collector, on the ground that he is usually satisfied 

 with a single pair, I would suggest that the birds have most to fear from 

 three classes of individual the shore-shooter, who goes out for mere 

 slaughter ; the man who shoots to provide the trade, whether it be that of 

 the London naturalist or the milliner ; and the ordinary country bird-catcher. 



To counteract the efforts of these worthies, there is at present a law 

 protecting nearly all birds from the beginning of February until the end 



