12 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



that an appeal should be made to residents in the counties 

 to which Challenge Shields have been presented, asking 

 them to encourage the work of Nature Study in elemen- 

 tary schools by providing funds for the festival celebration 

 and for book prizes. Reference was made to the heavy 

 loss sustained by the Nature Study movement in the 

 death of Mr. T, G. Rooper, H.M. Inspector of Schools, 

 and a donation was voted to the Memorial Fund. 

 Another subject before the Committee was the protection 

 of birds in the Fame Islands. Public attention having 

 been drawn to the statements made in Mr. Oliver Pike's 

 book, Hillside, Rock, and Dale, alleging barbarous 

 slaughter of the sea-birds on these Isles immediately on 

 the termination of the close season, enquiries were made, 

 and in the result an emphatic contradiction was received 

 from the Fame Island Bird Protection Association. 



method of work indicated amply accounts for the contrast 

 observed between so much English bird-art and the skill 

 with v/hich the Japanese artist portrays the life and 

 motion of birds. 



Nature Study. 



The loss of Mr. Rooper's wise guidance in a department 

 of education which has so suddenly sprung to the front, is 

 especially to be deplored now that the hackneyed phrase 

 "Nature Study" is made to cover a multitude of aims 

 and objects, of methods and ends. The resolution passed 

 by our Bristol Branch indicates one of the chief dangers 

 ahead — the danger that over-much "study" of an 

 eminently wrong kind may leave "nature" in a worse 

 state than she was found, and in no way conduce to the 

 practical advantage of the student. A sentence from 

 Mr. Medd's useful address given at the Conference of the 

 Private Schools Association at Harrogate last June, 

 indicates this point: "Since it has been feared that 

 irreparable harm may be done by the destruction of rare 

 plants or birds for the school museum, it cannot be too 

 strongly insisted upon that collecting for the sake of col- 

 lecting is worthless, and one of the results to be looked 

 for from Nature Study is a greater reverence for all living 

 things." To observe the growth and development of a 

 flower instead of pressing it in a book ; to watch quietly 

 the ways of bird or insect in place of collecting eggs and 

 pinning butterflies on corks, is the better way of studying 

 Nature. 



Nature and Art. 



It does not seem that the National Schools of Art have 

 yet hit upon any method for encouraging Nature Study 

 in connection with art. At the annual exhibition of 

 National Competition work, held at South Kensington in 

 August, there were numerous delineations of the human 

 form from the life, and admirable paintings of flowers, from 

 roses to cauliflowers ; but representations of animal " life " 

 were limited to a few birds copied from stuffed specimens 

 and conventional treatments copied from books, and to a 

 few butterflies for which a collector's tray had furnished 

 the models. No doubt it would be both difficult and 

 undesirable to introduce living creatures into the ordinary 

 class-room ; but all drawing is not done in class, and the 



Bird Shelters. 



Now that the season has come round for indoor classes 

 and clubs of all kinds, lovers of birds might take a leaf 

 out of the book of the Southport branch, which engaged 

 the time of a Working Lads' Club pleasantly and profitably 

 in the making of bird shelters and nesting boxes. These 

 shelters are very popular in Germany, where the Kaiser 

 ordered forty last spring for the Sans Souci Park, and 

 samples of German work were brought over by the 

 Mayoress of Southport as examples. Others were made 

 for sale by the members of the club, the wood being 

 given by a member of the Society, and a highly ornamental 

 specimen exhibited at the branch annual meeting showed 

 how decorative an object such a garden-home may be. 

 Plain and simple structures are, however, equally popular 

 with the birds, provided they afford suitable accommoda- 

 tion. Our leaflet (School Series No. 4) on nesting boxes 

 will supply hints for beginners in the business. Another 

 possible occupation for winter evenings is the colouring 

 of artificial eggs for school museums. These would do 

 away with any necessity for collecting, with all its 

 undesirable influence (a pursuit strongly deprecated by 

 the late Mr. Rooper), and would also supply more lasting 

 specimens than frail and fading egg shells. 



Winter Millinery. 



Women members of the Society are asked to be on their 

 guard against buying autumn and winter headgear trimmed 

 with "artificial" ospreys so-called (see " The Biography 

 of a Lie" in Bird Notes and News, No. 2); the bodies 

 or wings of sea-gulls, terns, and small birds, which are 

 appearing in quantities, particularly in the windows of 

 suburban and inferior-class shops; and "made-up" 

 birds, which besides being in egregiously bad taste, 

 commonly introduce forbidden plumage. Protests have 

 been raised in the press against one "novelty" in 

 particular, which is exhibited in various windows, a hat 

 trimmed with a wreath of stuffed bullfinches. A corre- 

 spondent of the Times suggests the "judicious withdrawal 

 of custom from shops where these abominable 'novelties' 

 are displayed " ; and the number of letters we have 

 received on the subject indicates that the public mind is 

 fairly sickened by these displays of the bodies and 

 dismembered fragments of bodies of slaughtered creatures. 

 The Society's rule binds members to wear only the 

 feathers of the ostrich, or of birds such as game and 

 poultry, which are killed for food. It may be added, 

 since enquiries on the subject have been made, that emu 

 feathers come within the proscribed list ; this interesting 

 bird is much persecuted by hunters, and is in imminent 

 danger of extermination in the one land in which it now 

 exists. 



