26 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



Another of the world's birds, once plentiful, 

 is the Passenger Pigeon of North America. Less 

 than a hundred years ago it nested in colonies 

 measured by miles in length, and, in one case, 

 forty miles in extent ; and it flew in flocks 

 reckoned by millions. The bird was harmless, 

 living chiefly on acorns and beech-nuts; but was 

 slaughtered with utter wantonness, being attacked 

 with guns and clubs and suffocated with sulphur 

 in its nesting-places, so that wagon-loads of 

 bodies were easily procured, to be sold at a cent 

 a piece, and droves of hogs fed on those which 

 the hunters did not trouble to pick up. "To-day," 

 says the author of the Audubon leaflet on the 

 subject, " the passenger pigeon is so rare that 

 the sight of one individual is an event to be 

 chronicled.'' 



The Egrets of Florida, slaughtered without 

 even the excuse of serving for human food, form 

 a further chapter in the melancholy record of 

 bird life which goes to show that no species, 

 however abundant, can withstand the greed and 

 ruthlessness of man. The Egrets of other lands, 

 and the Birds of Paradise, will probably be 

 the next to disappear. A scarcer plume-bird, 

 the Emu, existing only in comparatively small 

 numbers and in one region, is apparently near- 

 ing extermination, its plumes and eggs both 

 being in request. 



Turning from these prominent examples to 

 the persecution of birds in Great Britain — slain, 

 not for food nor for sport, nor to fill the bags 

 of the plume hunters, but simply because they 

 are rare — we have been confronted of late with 

 a longer chronicle than usual of rare species seen 

 and collected, including an Avocet in Suffolk 

 and Bitterns in Somerset and Northants. Sir 

 Edward Grey referred, at the Society's Meeting, 

 to the case of the Waxwings, rare and beautiful 

 visitants, several of whom have been observed 

 in different parts of Great Britain this winter. 

 In Craigellachie (the name be honoured !) two 

 pairs were seen and suffered to depart unharmed; 

 others have been trapped and shot in England 

 and Scotland, and now grace the glass hearses 

 of collectors. " What matter ! " says the col- 

 lector ; " the waxwing would not stay to nest — 

 let us bag him while we may." Yet the story is 



the same with regard to Hoopoe and Oriole, 

 birds which have bred in England, and might 

 do so again, if unmolested. 



Mr. Lionel Cust, in a letter to the Times, 

 suggests that, in order to put a check on this 

 detestable craze, ornithologists should draw up 

 a list of our rarest birds, and obtain an Act of 

 Parliament making all such birds, alive or dead, 

 Crown property. Even this would not meet the 

 case of birds locally rare — such as the Green 

 Woodpecker recently shot in Northumberland, 

 because it is almost never seen there. One 

 thing, however, is clear. Before the arrival of 

 the Society's millenium, hoped for by Sir Edward 

 Grey, when many would go forth to see a rare 

 bird, but none to shoot it, the last rarity among 

 British breeding birds will be entombed in the 

 collectors' cases, unless these ardent gentlemen 

 are persuaded by substantial legal penalties to 

 divert their energies to stamps and picture 

 postcards. 



POLE TRAP BILL. 



After several years' agitation on the subject of the 



abolition of the pole trap, the Society drafted a Bill, 



which last year secured a second reading. This 



year, in the early hours of the day upon which the 



annual meeting was held, the third reading of this 



Bill was passed in the House of Commons, and 



Mr. Buxton was able to announce the result. In 



the House of Lords the Bill was passed through 



Committee, with amendments, on March ioth,and 



in this slightly altered form it may be expected 



to receive the Royal assent. The text is now as 



follows : — 



i. From and after the passing of this Act every person 

 who, on any pole, tree, or cairn of earth or stones, shall 

 affix, place, or set any spring, trap, gin, or other similar 

 instrument calculated to inflict bodily injury to any wild 

 bird coming in contact therewith, and every person who 

 shall knowingly permit or suffer or cause any such trap 

 to be so affixed, placed, or set, shall be guilty of an 

 offence, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a 

 penalty not exceeding forty shillings, and for a second 

 or subsequent offence to a penalty not exceeding five 

 pounds. 



2. Every offence under this Act may be prosecuted 

 under the provisions of section 5 of the Wild Birds' 

 Protection Act, 1880. 



3. This Act may be cited as the Wild Birds' Protection 

 Act, 1904, and shall be construed with the Wild Birds' 

 Protection Act, 1880 to 1902 ; and those Acts and this 

 Act may be cited collectively as Wild Birds' Protection 

 Acts, 1880 to 1904. 



