BIRD NOTES and NEWS. 



Circular Writer 

 isitetr ^rriootcallir 

 by ilje ^oricrrr 



for tlje 



^protertion of 



fBtrtis. 



London, 

 , Hanover Square. 



CONTENTS. 



The Caging of Wild Birds. 

 Notes — 



Watching. 



Gulls and Herrings. 



An " Open Door." 



Selbome Society. 



Obituary. 



Lantern Slides. 



The City Pigeons. 



Bird and Tree Day. 

 A Plea for a National Park. 

 The Plume Trade. 

 " Imitation Ospreys" again. 

 In the Courts. 

 News from Workers. 



No. 6. 

 JULY, 1904. 



CAGING OF WILD BIRDS. 



ITH the possible exception of bird- 

 trimmed millinery, and the con- 

 sequent slaughter of plume birds in 

 breeding-time, nothing is the cause 

 of so much cruelty to wild birds 

 as the cage bird business, with all that 

 it entails. 



A great deal is urged on behalf of the caging 

 of birds. It encourages " a love of birds," we 

 are told ; they are pets with ladies and children ; 

 they must be happy because they go on living 

 and singing and are saved from their natural 

 enemies ; their presence gladdens and refines 

 the slum ; and so on. 



But, apart from fancy and false sentiment, 

 what are the facts of the matter in regard 

 especially to the British wild bird? The 

 character of the bird-catching trade, and the 

 extent to which it is still carried on in fields and 

 hedgerows, and in practically every piece of 

 common or open land where there are still 

 any birds worth catching, are realized by few 

 persons, even though they may live near some 

 favoured resort and see rough-looking gentry, 

 with the familiar apparatus, pass their doors 

 every Sunday morning, or meet, and instinc- 



tively avoid, them about country lanes and 

 commons. In the open season the catcher has 

 little let or hindrance, save in counties where 

 the list of birds protected throughout the year 

 is carefully framed, so that he cannot, while 

 netting the unprotected linnets take protected 

 redpolls "by mistake," or goldfinches "by 

 accident " ; and where the police and the 

 R.S.P.C.A. officers are vigilant in enforcing 

 the Orders. Even in Close Time he has no 

 difficult task in evading the law, or in getting 

 behind it by securing the easy co-operation of 

 some small farmer who will " let " him the land 

 for the purpose. 



The catcher goes to work with his decoy 

 birds and his nets or lime, most of the " work " 

 being done by the miserable little decoys, 

 surely the most hapless of bird victims ! Since 

 the Act of 1900 was passed the decoy has been 

 brought under some sort of protection, and 

 needs it badly enough : the linnets with bleed- 

 ing legs, and the yellowhammer with broken 

 back, mentioned under the heading " In the 

 Courts " on another page, may be taken as 

 samples of the tenderness with which they are 

 used. 



The wild birds are caught by the dozen or 

 the hundred ; the hens probably have their 



