Bird Protection in Italy as It Impresses the Italian 157 



exhibit. A curious fact about this collection, which furnishes unimpeach- 

 able testimony of the ruthlessness of Italian pot-hunters, is that a very large 

 proportion of these specimens, great or small, common or rare, were 

 obtained from the Roman markets, and are often thus marked (for 

 example, '^'^ Mercato al Pantheo''^) with the date. Besides the common song- 

 birds of Europe there were Grebes, Loons, Egrets, Herons, Gulls, and 

 many others too numerous to catalogue here which found their way to the 

 markets in Rome at various times of the year.* 



The curator of the museum informed me that the smaller birds were pro- 

 tected from April 15 to August 15, the close season for water-fowl being 

 shorter. As we shall see, different regulations have been in force in different 

 provinces, but the result does not seem to have been to preserve the birds or 

 to augment the bird -life of the country, but rather to improve the business 

 of the gunners and snarers at other times. My informant would not admit 

 that the killing of wild birds had led to any injury of vegetation or of crops. 



Further, I interviewed the director of the Royal Institue of Forestry at 

 Vallombrosa, and submitted to him a series of questions upon the subject 

 of bird protection in Italy, but this kindly man was unable to give me any 

 information on the subject. The idea of protecting the lives of wild birds 

 seemed as foreign to his thought as the "canal system" of the planet Mars. 

 ^^ ^uod semper, omnibus, ubique,^^ what has always been done by every one, 

 everywhere, seemed to him eminently proper. The director knew that the 

 practice of killing song-birds was very old, but he thought it did no harm, 

 and he could not refer me to any literature upon the relations of birds 

 to man. 



Sig. Nigro Lico has written an interesting manual! on the protection 

 of animals, from the standpoint of an Italian, and Professor Antonio Berlese,| 



*It would require a far greater familiarity with the birds of Europe than I possess to 

 identify a large part of those offered for sale in Italian markets, especially when the bodies 

 of the victims are plucked or even skinned, as is sometimes the case. I will note here a few 

 of the kinds seen in the Roman markets in 1903-4, concerning the identity of which there 

 was little or no doubt. When the Latin name is given, the common Italian one follows in 

 brackets: Turdus musicus (Tordo, the name used indiscriminately for various species by 

 the populace). Song Thrush, February 29. T. pilaris, Fieldfare; sold at 8 cents apiece 

 (in markets apparently under the name of Grives Savoyard), February 29. Erythracus 

 rubecola (Fettirosso) , Robin Redbreast; seen tripping about the Medici gardens, 

 March 9. Vanellus cristatus [Pavoncella), Lapwing or Plover; seen on the marshes in 

 Holland in early September; very common in the Roman markets from January i to 

 April I ; sold in the markets, and hawked all over the city in long strings, bringing ten 

 to twenty cents apiece. Gallinago ccelestis {Beccaccini), on sale at Ponti's on the Corse 

 at twenty cents each, February 29. Allodola, a large Finch streaked all over with umber 

 and buff, to be seen in great piles in the markets toward the last of February and in March. 

 About twenty-five other species were more or less common in the markets of Rome at some 

 time of the year. 



tLa Protezione degli Animali (Manuali Hoepli), Milano, 1902. 



X Bolletino di Entomologia Agraria, anno VIII, Num. 5-9. Padova, 1901. 



