8(5 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



NOTES. 



Bird Protection at the Congress. 



The importance and success of congresses and 

 conferences lies less in the amount of definite work 

 accomplished than in the strengthening of enthu- 

 siasm, the stimulating of thought, and the energising 

 of effort which result from personal intercourse 

 among co-workers. From this standpoint particu- 

 larly the recent International Ornithological Con- 

 gress may be pronounced an undoubted success 

 by friends of Bird Protection no less than by the 

 more purely scientific ornithologists in whose 

 interests it was arranged. There was com- 

 paratively little Bird Protection on the programme, 

 but there was a great deal in the air ; and to so 

 large an extent did it enter into the considerations 

 of sections other than that allotted to it that the 

 Times I in a concluding notice pronounced the 

 Congress to have been " specially concerned " with 

 this department of ornithology. 



Penguin Oil. 



The one piece of executive work undertaken by 

 the Congress was distinctly Protective. At the 

 instance of Mr. Walter Rothschild, supported by 

 representative naturalists of various lands, a 

 petition was despatched to the governments of 

 New Zealand and Australia praying for special 

 protection in the islands under their rule for birds 

 now boiled down for oil by traders. 



dying of fright or suffocation in overcrowded boxes 

 on the rail or sold for a few pence in shop or street ? 

 The Audubon Society of America had some ground 

 on which to stand in its recent protests against the 

 exportation of English wild birds to the States : it 

 has done its best to prohibit the caging of the 

 native birds of America. But a Congress meeting 

 in England, and proposing to petition the Colonies, 

 might reasonably be requested to address its pro- 

 tests nearer home. 



The Cage Bird Traffic. 



Another effort towards legislation was urged by 

 Mr. A. F. Wiener, who, in the course of the dis- 

 cussion on Aviculture, pleaded on behalf of the 

 multitudinous little foreign birds imported into 

 Europe, numbers of which perish on the way, while 

 the survivors sell for a very small sum. He 

 suggested that if the colonies would place a small 

 export duty on live birds they would be shipped 

 less recklessly, and the higher price resulting 

 would ensure greater care in their treatment. The 

 audience listened sympathetically, but they did not 

 take any step to further the suggestion. A Colonial 

 government approached in the matter of bird-traffic 

 might, indeed, well turn round and ask : How about 

 the hundreds and thousands of wild birds— the 

 larks and linnets, and chaffinches and greenfinches, 

 which England exports ? How about the heavy 

 percentages of these which perish on the road ? 

 How, too, about the thousands sent up every week 

 in autumn from English villages to the big towns — 



The Fauna of New South Wales. 



The Chairman of the New South Wales National 

 Park Trust appeals in the Sydney Morning Herald, 

 of July 19th last, for the protection of the native 

 fauna and flora of the State. The National Reserve 

 consists of sixty square miles of country where 

 native birds and animals are now carefully pre- 

 served in a free condition ; but Mr. Farnell fails to 

 see why this little territory should be the oie place 

 where they are safe. In particular, he refers to the 

 necessity for checking the destruction of game, 

 the collecting by naturalists (the permit system 

 having been greatly abused), and egg-collecting 

 for schools, &c, the last being responsible "for 

 the decrease of the most valuable species of our 

 insectivorous birds." The formation of an Accli- 

 matization Society, such as other Australasian 

 States already possess, is urged, for the distribu- 

 tion of indigenous animals and the introduction 

 and acclimatization of those of other countries. 



The Signalman and the Birds. 



A pleasant little incident is reported by Mr. 

 Masefield, the Society's Hon. Local Secretary for 

 North Staffordshire. Several pairs of redshanks 

 have bred near Stafford in the last few years, no 

 doubt in consequence of the protection extended to 

 the species under the County's Protection Order ; 

 and this year one pair nested in a meadow close to 

 a signal box on the L. & N.-W. railway. The old 

 birds brought the young ones, when hatched, close 

 up to a much-frequented main road, and en- 

 deavoured to pilot them across to a sewage farm 

 which lies on the other side ; but failed to get them 

 through the railings— fortunately, no doubt, con- 

 sidering the dangers of the highway and the stones 

 of passing boys. The signalman, however, had 

 often noticed these "big whistling snipe," as he 

 called them, and observing their difficulty and 

 danger, went to their aid and carried all the chicks 

 to a place of safety in the lower meadow. The 

 incident was mentioned at a meeting of the North 



