182 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



with great quantities of artificial bushes whose branches 

 are covered with bird lime, and immense numbers of them 

 are caught by the fellaheen. 'There is a regular trade at 

 Rosetta in small birds, . . . bundles of them being 

 offered in the streets and on the station. They are mainly 

 wheatears, pipits and warblers. They are bird-limed and 

 snared and caught in large quantities for food. It is not 

 a question of a few birds being killed, but of thousands 

 daily — limed twigs all along the coast. They are a staple 

 article of food in these parts. Apparently nobody here has 

 ever made an attempt to enforce the regulations, but I am 

 going to do so." (F. Atterbury, Rosetta, August, 1915.) 



The price of the birds in Alexandria is 4 Turkish piastres 

 per dozen, or about 20 cents; in Damietta, 2% piastres per 

 dozen, except rollers and large birds that fetch 1 piastre 

 each. 



In the three districts above there is a great dearth of 

 British officials and British officers of the law. As a result, 

 the native officials when sufficiently prodded by their su- 

 periors, make sporadic efforts to stop bird liming. It is 

 stopped while the British official is on the spot; but imme- 

 diately his back is turned and his absence reported, it breaks 

 out again as virulently as before. 



In view of the fact that British zoologists in the gov- 

 ernment service in Egypt now have turned the searchlight 

 of publicity upon the bird-destroying practices that have 

 been prevailing in Lower Egypt, we may expect a prompt 

 end of the evil. Beyond question ways will be found to 

 suppress the bird liming and bird snaring industry, and 

 to suppress the sale of song birds for food. The bird pro- 

 tectors of the world may confidently count upon it that the 

 bird liming evil which so long has been practiced in Lower 

 Egypt very soon will receive its quietus, and be numbered 

 with the things that were done to the birds during the 

 Dark Ages. 



