BIRD PROTECTION AND DESTRUCTION 



IN EGYPT 



WHEREVER Englishmen are found throughout the 

 world who are charged with the government of lands 

 and peoples, the wild birds and quadrupeds are sure to 

 have strong champions at court, and are sure to receive 

 the best protection that can be afforded. It is unnecessary 

 to point out that in governing great masses of ignorant 

 people by means of a few intelligent officials and a very 

 small number of officers of the law, it is not always pos- 

 sible to cover the whole situation and invariably make the 

 punishments fit the crime. But wherever he is, the British 

 official tries to do his bit in the protection of wild life. 



Early in the British management of the affairs of Egypt 

 various British officers in the service of the Egyptian Gov- 

 ernment recognized the fact that the Valley of the Nile 

 is a great highway for a huge volume of migratory bird 

 life that annually traverses it forward and back on its way 

 to and from Europe. These migratory birds consist chiefly 

 of members of the passerine order, and through their de- 

 struction of insects are highly beneficial to agriculture. 

 For many years they have been slaughtered in Italy during 

 their migrations in ways that already have been fully de- 

 scribed in "Our Vanishing Wild Life" and elsewhere. 



Twenty years ago several British officers in the service 

 of the Egyptian Government, and particularly Sir Alexander 

 Baird, Dr. Walter Francis Innes Bey and Captain S. S. 

 Flower, Director of the Egyptian Zoological Gardens at 

 Giza, endeavored to secure the protection of the useful 

 birds of Egypt. Not much definite progress was made 

 until the late Field Marshal Lord Kitchener took the mat- 



