BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



21 



NOTES. 



County Challenge Shield Competition. 



Bird and Tree County Challenge Shields, with their 

 accompanying prizes and awards, given by the Society 

 for the Protection of Birds, were this year competed for 

 in four counties— Berkshire and East Yorkshire (second 

 year), Hampshire and Westmoreland,— the competing 

 teams being drawn from elementary schools. The two 

 last-named counties, which entered the lists for the first 

 time, did better than the older competitors as regards both 

 number and quality of the essays sent in ; but this might 

 have been anticipated. Hampshire is not only the 

 largest county of the four, but it has long been favoured 

 by naturalists, from Gilbert White onwards, and has 

 some earnest Bird Protection workers within its borders ; 

 while Westmoreland, though with a small and scattered 

 population, could hardly fail to respond in some measure 

 to the Wordsworth and Ruskin traditions. It would be 

 unreasonable to expect equal enthusiasm in a district 

 where little has been hitherto said or done to suggest 

 that Nature is worth noticing. If all competitors have 

 not yet grasped the Society's ideal, or realised that 

 an ounce of childish observation and comprehension is 

 worth many pounds of dry facts and figures crammed, 

 heaven knows how, into little heads, they have made a 

 notable step forward. And though the Society's Shield 

 can go to but one school in a county, there must surely 

 be sympathetic and kindly residents in and near every 

 village and parish represented, to ensure a Festival Day 

 for every competing school, with tree-planting to mark 

 the event, suitable prizes to the young essayists, and a 

 cheery word of commendation and "better luck next 

 time." To every school arranging such a festival the 

 Society is offering a consolation book-prize, to be given, 

 at the option of the local committee, to the writer of the 

 best essay or to the school library. 



one wonder whether the little writers have ever beheld 

 the creature or the tree they so elaborately describe. The 

 boys of Sandown Higher Grade School — not children, it 

 is true, but lads between 12 and 16 — have reached the 

 point of not merely being taught to observe but of know- 

 ing how to do it on their own account. Their papers, 

 which carry off the Shield, are really admirable ; the 

 writer of that on the kestrel has surely in him the making 

 of a naturalist, while the study of the ash-tree is also 

 exceptionally good. An excellent second is furnished by 

 the Bitterne Park Boys' School, Southampton ; their 

 essays display much knowledge and genuine interest in 

 work that is obviously inspired by an enthusiastic and 

 thoroughly capable teacher, and is pleasantly flavoured 

 by many local references. If there were a third prize it 

 would have gone to the girls of St. Peter's School, 

 Bournemouth, whose essays are delightfully sincere in 

 feeling and expression, and tell of the pleasure their 

 preparation has given to the writers. 



Hampshire Schools. 



Other schools in Hampshire deserve honourable men- 

 tion. In the first class, Hook, showing much observation, 

 especially as regard birds, as well as information ; Privett, 

 where books have been intelligently studied and taken 

 out of doors ; Bitterne Park Girls, essays prettily and 

 sympathetically written, the trees notably good. Second 

 class, Wroxall, I.W., accompanied by good drawings, 

 and brightly told, if somewhat too bookish ; Yateley and 

 Headley, both well written, better in trees than in birds, 

 but deficient in sympathy ; Western, Southampton, 

 very meritorious, if not always quite accurate ; Fareham, 

 apparently all derived from books, but good at that ; 

 Yentnor, where, again, the young folk are well taught, 

 and will, no doubt, learn to look through their own eyes 

 in time. Third class, Wickham, where some originality 

 betokens personal observation ; Awbridge, with coloured 

 crayon drawings ; Bold re ; and Barton Stacey. 



"Eyes and No Eyes." 



The Bishop of Winchester, in summing up a discussion 

 on the " Dullness of the Country," at his Diocesan Con- 

 ference the other day, suggestively remarked that but few 

 villages probably possessed teachers competent to instil 

 into their scholars a sense of the beauty and dignity of 

 the country, or to instruct them in the difference between 

 a jay and a tom-tit. It should be some satisfaction to 

 Dr. Ryle to know that at least a proportion of the 

 teachers in his diocese evidently take a keen interest in 

 jays and tom-tits, and are doing their best to press home 

 the moral of the old story of " Eyes and No Eyes," 

 which contains the truth about the dullness of the country 

 in a nutshell. Where boys and girls are being taught to 

 see with their own eyes the birds and trees selected, an 

 unmistakable freshness and vitality brightens their essays, 

 and sets them high above the wonderfully erudite — 

 and sometimes wonderfully dull — compositions that make 



Westmoreland. 



All the essays from Westmoreland are good. Those from 

 Waicop, whither the Shield goes, are astonishing for the 

 amount of information contained and the ambitious charac- 

 ter of the composition ; they show real hard work, intelli- 

 gence, and considerable observation ; and it is pleasant to 

 hear that the school has already distinguished itself in 

 Nature study in the eyes of H.M. Inspector, has formed a 

 Bird and Tree library, and enjoyed Bird and Tree rambles. 

 The pi'oxime accessit is Heversham, the style of whose 

 essays is admirable, the observations being accurate and 

 simply recorded. The paper on the starling is really 

 noteworthy for a child of ten ; and very good, too, are 

 those on apple and yew. The Beetham essays contain 

 a great deal that is excellent, and Kendal deserves a 

 special word of praise for the knowledge shown of Bird 

 Protection law. 



