A Roccolo in Italy.



85



and thousands of song birds and birds that are eminently useful

for the benefit of the agriculturist.


The proprietor of the Roccolo which I visited told me that

he had during that week taken 500 birds, and that such a number

was a fair average at each Roccolo. On asking how many there

were in the immediate neighbourhood, he said “twelve,” within

easy walking distance. This means the destruction of at least

5,000 birds weekly in that one small area. What must it then be

throughout the whole country ? Another fowler told me that

last autumn (1910) he took 10,000 birds, and his Roccolo is quite

small and comparatively insignificant.


The heap of birds’ bodies that I saw consisted of Starlings,

Tree (or Mountain) Sparrows, Linnets, Greenfinches, Chaffinches,

Goldfinches, Hawfinches, Serin Finches, Redstarts, Blackcaps,

Robins, Song Thrushes, Blackbirds, one Nutcracker, Blue and

Coal Tits, and others, such as a Fieldfare and a Redwing.


The great migration of Robins had not yet commenced,

but in another week or two it would be a usual thing to see men

walking in the streets of the country towns carrying a bunch of

dead Robins as large as a football. Only the other day, a man

came to my door to ask whether I wanted to buy any birds for the

table, holding up a cascade of dead Goldfinches \_what a rosary !]

of which there must have been at least three hundred. How

there are any birds left puzzles one! That man didn’t linger

at my door, you may be sure.


That Roccolo haunts me. As I stood on that wooded

eminence in the stillness of the autumn day, the glassy lake of

Como sweeping away into the far distance below me, the grandeur

of the surrounding mountains towering above me, their wooded

slopes now tinged with every shade of autumnal tints reflected

in the blue-green waters, I thought indeed how vile mankind

can be. So still was the air, that one heard the approach of the

migrants, flitting, flitting to their death. Up rose the fowler

again, the wicker racquets hurtling over the bower, the quick

dive downwards of the birds, the fluttering of entangled wings

. . . . . Andiamo! Let us go ! !



