ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



A I'LKI'LE FINCH AT A KELLER FOOD STATION 



Here is a bird food-station that is botli pleasing to the eye and useful as well. A combination of the hopper principle and the 



weather vane, it holds a generous supply of seeds that constantly runs down the slide to the food shelf: and the tin on the 



top of the station heads the submarine like prow right up into the wind's eye. On each side, two tiny glass-covered 



portsadmit the light to the food-shelf, which, thanks to the ingenuity of the designer, is always dry and sheltered. 



The birds soon learn to patronize these graceful little stations, clinging to the outer perch, \\ bile in the hum 



ming wind the food vane tosses around like a tiny ship and thrusts its nose into the teeth of the storm. 



Securely sheltered, the little waifs eat their fill of seeds and then give way t.i ethers. 



Photograph by E. F. Keller 



what it means to collect live birds in the virgin 

 forests. Sick or well, the birds have to be fed 

 and watered, yet how many of us — the lucky 

 possessors of tropical bird treasures — realize 

 what hardship and bodily misery it may have 

 cost the collector to obtain the specimens we 

 now admire in our aviaries ? 



THE MURDER OF THE BIRDS. 

 Last of the Sea-Eagles of the Shetland*. 



A BRIEF obituary notice appears in the cur- 

 rent number of "Bird Notes and News" of 

 the last of the white-tailed or sea-eagles of 

 the Shetlands. This is also believed to be the 

 last of the British race of these noble birds and 

 has only survived to the present day through the 

 protection afforded by the Watchers of the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds (23 Queen 

 Anne's-gate. S. W.). She had outlived her mate 



for eight years and grown quite white; but for 

 several years after the disappearance of the 

 male bird — probably shot in some unprotected 

 area — she haunted the old nest and watched and 

 waited. 



The Society unfortunately was too late to 

 preserve the British ernes, and man's hand had 

 been too long against them. Down to 1836 

 it was the custom of the "Commissioners of 

 Supply," in an outburst of economic zeal not 

 unparalleled in later days, to give 3s. (id. for 

 every eagle killed. The collector did his best 

 to help in the destruction, one writer, who visit- 

 ed Shetland in 1837. mentioning that he obtained 

 eight specimens. Since then the resident birds 

 and also wandering individuals have been eager- 

 Iv shot "for preservation." with the result that 

 the British erne has now to be added to the 

 list of exterminated birds lost forever to this 

 country's fauna. — London Observer, April, '19. 



