34



The Common-sense of Bird Protection.



tiny flies, so that it is hardly likely that these Pileated Finches

will successfully nest in the house. For seed their choice seems

to be spray millet, of which they eat a great deal.



THE COMMON-SENSE OF BIRD PROTECTION.



Bird protection is, with many people, cjuite a popular

theme at the present time, and, so long as it is carried out on

common-sense lines, and those principally engaged do not allow

themselves to be unduly swayed by mere sentiment, it is

calculated to do a great deal of real good. As a rule, however,

one finds that those chiefly responsible for the movement allow

themselves to be governed to far too great an extent by people

who know little or nothing of the natural history of birds, but

seem to imagine that a bird is a sacred animal, and that, however

harmful it may be to 'those engaged in agricultural or fruit¬

growing pursuits, it must be protected because it is a bird,

although animals which happen to be clothed in fur or scales,

though they may be less harmful than their feathered con¬

temporaries, may be slain wholesale without a protest being

raised.


In years gone by, when egg-collection was not illegal, every

country schoolboy made his collection of birds’ eggs, and the

result was that he obtained, besides the eggs, a knowledge of

natural history, while, at the same time checking the undue

increase of the commoner species such as the Songthrush and

Blackbird which, of late years, have increased to so great an

extent that, at the present time, it is next to impossible to grow

strawberries, raspberries or currants in many parts of the country

unless every plant or tree is duly protected by netting, an

expensive process which robs the fruit-grower of most of his

profit. On the other hand, perfectly harmless, and, in many

cases very useful species are allowed to be ruthlessly slain to

satisfy the selfish greed of present-day fashion.


The West-End milliners’ shops abound in hideous mon¬

strosities in the form of portions of birds, consisting perhaps

of the body of one species with the wings of another, or the



