Correspondence.



197



fresh-water shrimps and put them into his tray of water, and rather to my surprise

he fell upon the minnows in grand style, and managed to swallow quite large ones

and almost immediately became singularly adept in catching them. He was, as

I had expected, delighted with the beetles, shrimps, etc., but I had not expected

him to be so keen on the minnows. He is now in perfect condition and very

tame. When I let him out of his cage and pick up his maggot tin he runs up to

my feet and looks up, ready for me to drop maggots for him. He manages about

sixteen comfortably at a meal, and will get through a hundred minnows in the

24 hours, besides maggots, beetles, soft food, etc. !


He was not at all pleased to see the new Snipe at first, and stood on tip¬

toe, pecked its head and “scolded ! ” but they are now perfectly friendly

and sit about and feed side by side.


I have always thought that a Jack Snipe would make an ideal cage bird,

though I have never possessed a healthy one. I have had two or three winged ”

specimens, but they never lived long and always after death proved to have had a

body wound as well, but I am certain that if one could catch an unhurt specimen

it would do well, as lam sure they are partly vegetable eaters, and would not

require so many worms as a full Snipe, which is their one drawback ! More¬

over, they would very quickly tame and are among the most beautiful of

British birds. HUGH WORMALD.


DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS’ NESTS AND EGGS.


SIR,—A countryman and a lover of birds and animals, I usually go

at Easter time for a fortnight’s roam through some of the most beautiful parts

of rural Worcestershire, when I am horrified, each time, at the wholesale

destruction of birds’ nests and the wanton cruelty to bird life generally,

perpetrated by school boys and the younger farm hands. Nests are

destroyed and the eggs smashed wholesale and if, as is the case a little

later, hatching has begun, young birds are taken from the nest and often heart¬

lessly destroyed, being literally pulled to pieces limb from limb and left strewn

about the roadsides or in the fields. Moreover, Sunday of all days is made the

occasion for this horrible pursuit when young people band themseves together for the

sole purpose of 1 ' birds-nesting’ ’ as they call it. On a Sunday afternoon, last year,

I came across a number of boys and girls assembled in an orchard where, having

robbed all the nests they could find in the fields round about, they were engaged

in a sordid competition in which they vied with one another in hitting a tree

selected for a mark, with the eggs collected. Such revolting sights as these

harrow the feelings of every lover of nature and are such as to rouse the

indignation of every right-minded person. I fear that what is the case in

Worcestershire may be prevalent in other parts of the country as well. So that

I feel that something really ought to be done to put an end to this form of

youthful heartlessness and to the destruction of those creatures which add by their

presence so much to the beauty of God’s creation, and which are precious, at



