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Dr. A. G. Butler,



Now, as regards bird-catchers, who have been driven from

pillar to post, persecuted and prosecuted for many years past,

because in the winter w T hen their usual work was slack, they were

able to go out with their nets and pick up a precarious living and so

keep their wives and children from starving; they have been as

a body accused of wanton cruelty and many another crime; but I

have found most of them industrious, sober and most intelligent,

even though uneducated men ; they taught me several interesting

facts about birds respecting which previously I had no knowledge.

Of course, there were occasional exceptions, as in all other businesses,

but it is unfair to condemn the whole class for the sins of the

occasional rascal.


And what did the late talented observer, Herr. Gatke,

remark as to man’s asserted reduction of the numbers of birds ?—

“ To a witness—of the enormous passage of migrants, of the myriads

of individuals which, on autumn nights, travel past this island, like

the flakes of a snow-storm, not only within the area of the light¬

house, but for miles north and south out to sea, these complaints

seem quite incomprehensible. It is surely impossible that the hand

of man can exercise any perceptible influence on such enormous

migration streams.”


A lot of absolute nonsense has been written about the

decrease of Goldfinches and other birds in England, and the blame

has been put upon the bird-catchers ; as if they alone were respon¬

sible and the comparatively few birds captured in their nets made

any appreciable difference to the many millions of these birds born

each year in Europe. Of course where there is a decrease in

numbers it is due entirely to the cutting down of timber and

reclaiming of waste land formerly covered with thistle and teazle,

upon which these birds delight to feed. When on migration in the

spring it is not to be expected that Goldfinches or any other birds

should settle down in a locality where they can neither find suitable

nesting-places nor food which appeals to them.


The actual effect of the pretended humanitarianism agitated

for by English protectionists has been to hamper the honest poor in

providing their children with the necessaries of life, while at the

same time dooming a greater number of lovely song - birds to



