50



Correspondence, Notes, etc.



unsuitable candidates being elected. As we stated in the last number of

our Magazine, the Council necessarily know who are the most suitable

members to take the place of the two retiring much better than the

majority of the members can possibly know, and they are unquestionably

the body to recommend the new candidates. If such a rule were not a

good one it would not be, and have been for very many years, in force in

most of the best societies of the countiw.


Mr. Fillmer says it is not correct that he “ started a new Society in

1901.” Whether the “Foreign Bird Club” was called a new Society, or

whether it was considered to be the “Foreign Bird Exhibitors’ League”

under a new name makes little difference : at any rate it changed its

nature and started a magazine of its own, on almost the same lines as

the Avicultural Magazine. We find, on reference to the first number of

Bird Notes that the special reduction to members of the Avicultural Society

was only in force when the F.B.C. was known as the Foreign Bird Ex¬

hibitors’ League, and we therefore withdraw the statement that “as a

special inducement members of the Avicultural Society were allowed to

join without paying an entrance fee.”


We certainly did not state that efforts were made to induce members

to leave the Avicultural Society, but that every inducement was offered to

our members to join theF.B.C., and as a natural consequence of this several

of our members did leave 11s to join the new Society, or the Society with a

new name and a new magazine.


As to the suggestion that the Council should be increased to 20 or 24,

this seems to us to be impracticable, and considering that the members are

scattered over the length and breadth of the laud, and that the Society has

no meeting room, the idea of frequent meetings, desirable as these would

be, is out of the question.—E d.]



To the Hon. Business Secretary.


Sir,—I should like to express my views on this question raised by

Mr. Fillmer’s letter and the Editor’s remarks thereon in the last issue of

the Society’s Magazine.


I write in no carping spirit and trust I shall not be condemned as a

“malcontent” simply from my inabilit}' to agree in toto with the actions of

those directly responsible for the management. Personally I appreciate to

the fullest extent the efforts of the present Council, and more particularly

those of the gentlemen forming the Executive Committee, to make the

Society and its Magazine a success ; and I unhesitatingly admit that it is in

consequence of their admirable administration that we have such a satis¬

factory production each month as is the latter.


But however much I may admire the devotion and self-sacrifice of

those referred to, I am opposed to the adoption of unconstitutional methods

to secure even that which I may be disposed to admit is the best for the



