BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



43 



BIRD PROTECTION IN CENTRAL 



AFRICA. 



In the House of Commons, on August 8th, Sir H. 

 Seton-Karrdrewattention to the extensive slaughter 

 of wild animals and birds carried on by the natives 

 in Lagos, and asked what steps were being taken 

 to prevent it. The Colonial Secretary, in reply, 

 said that regulations for the preservation of certain 

 animals and birds had been drawn up, in accordance 

 with the powers given by the International Con- 

 vention signed in London in 1900, and enquiry would 

 be made as to their promulgation. Considerable 

 difficulties attended the imposition of restriction in 

 the protectorate of Lagos as distinguished from 

 the colony, but he would communicate with the 

 Governor on the subject. The birds protected 

 by the Convention are the owl, secretary-bird, 

 rhinoceros-bird, and vulture, with partial protec- 

 tion for the egret, marabou, bustard, ostrich, and 

 game-birds. 



"NATURE STUDY" IN SCHOOLS. 



Sir George Kekewich, K.C.B., presided at a 

 Nature Study Conference held at the Botanic 

 Gardens, London, on June 7th, 1904, and in his 

 address spoke as follows on the subject of Nature 

 Study in schools : 



"Rightly used, Nature Study may powerfully 

 affect and lead in the right direction the develop- 

 ment of character. Reverence, awe, love, and 

 refinement, appreciation of beauty, kindness to all 

 living things, and a thousand other lessons which 

 will build up character, may be taught in the study 

 of Nature. 



11 But there is a danger to be guarded against, a 

 danger which is the more real because it is one 

 which springs from excessive zeal. I believe that 

 Nature should be studied under natural condi- 

 tions, and I think that if such conditions cannot 

 be obtained, or if suffering is inflicted upon the 

 creatures studied, Nature Study had better be 

 absent from the curriculum. To my mind we 

 should not, and we ought not to, keep living 

 creatures under artificial conditions for purposes 

 of Nature Study, nor certainly ought we to suggest 

 to the children that it is right to kill birds or 

 collect birds' eggs or insects for the purpose 

 of School Museums. I do not think that it can 

 improve the character of a child if he is led to 

 infer that it is right to kill in order to enrich a 

 School Museum, and that there is no harm in 

 his doing so; such a creed practically inculcates 

 cruelty. Birds, mice, dormice, hedgehogs, rats, 

 blindworms, snakes, in cages or confinement — 

 aquaria or vivaria— are all, to my mind, equally 



objectionable, and there is plenty of material for 

 the museums of even our urban schools without 

 the inclusion of such exhibits. 



" I would never be a party to any propaganda 

 the effect of which was to suggest to the chiid 

 cruelty to living things. The very opposite should 

 be taught, and I trust that such exhibits will never 

 be admitted into a Nature Study Exhibition. I 

 fear that at previous exhibitions they have been, 

 probably through inadvertence." 



As one result of Sir George's speech the " School 

 Nature Study Union " has crossed off from the list 

 of its "objects" the provision of "living specimens 

 for demonstration and observation " in school 

 museums. 



CANON RAWNSLEY ON RURAL 



LIFE. 



An address by Canon Rawnsley on " The work 

 and aims of the Society for the Protection of 

 Birds " was read at the very successful inaugural 

 meeting of the Lincoln Branch of the Society on 

 June 24th, 1904. After speaking of the destruction 

 of birds for millinery, and of the work of the County 

 Councils in putting the Bird Protection Acts in 

 force, the Rev. Canon specially alluded to the 

 institution of Bird and Tree Day, expressing a 

 hope that as one result of the meeting someone 

 would present a challenge shield for Lincolnshire. 

 " The Society's greatest claim to our gratitude 

 is that it has realised that the best chance of savin? 

 bird-life is by the education of our elementary 

 scholars to observe and care for the bird life that 

 is round about them, and if side by side with the 

 encouragement of the habit of observation given 

 to the eyes of our school children we can enlist the 

 sympathies of our school teachers, as has been 

 done in Cumberland, one is very hopeful that the 

 next generation will not only have other Jonathan 

 Edwards and Richard Dicks, but also that we 

 shall have done one of the greatest public services 

 that we can well do, namely, that of adding to the 

 real interest of rural life. It cannot, I think, be 

 doubted that it is our duty to prevent the passing 

 away to our cities of the pith and sinew of our 

 people ; and the rapid deterioration of the physique 

 of the people as soon as they become city prisoners 

 is a matter of serious alarm ; but the greater excite- 

 ments of town life and the dulness of rural life can 

 in some measure be counteracted by the work that 

 this Society has undertaken. It is possible to get 

 children so to care about the bird life and the 



