BIBB NOTES AND NEWS. 



99 



COUNCIL MEETINGS. 



Meetings of the Council of the Society were held 

 at No, 3, Hanover Square, W., on October ioth 

 and December ist. At the earlier meeting- there 

 were present : Mr. Montagu Sharpe, Chairman, 

 Sir John Cockburn, Mr. H. E. Dresser, Hon. Mrs. 

 Drewitt, Dr. Drewitt, Miss Hall, Rev. A. L. Hussey, 

 Mr. Hastings Lees, Mrs. Lemon, Mr. Meade- 

 Waldo, Mr. Howard Saunders, the Hon. Secretary, 

 and the Secretary. Particulars as to the Schools 

 competing for the Bird and Tree Challenge Shields 

 were given, and arrangements made for the judging 

 of the essays. The reports of the Publication and 

 Finance and General Purposes Committees were 

 received, and various matters, including the traffic 

 in cage-birds and the plume trade in India, con- 

 sidered. Mr. Aubyn Trevor-Battye and the Hon. 

 Alfred Dobson, K.C., C.M.G., were elected members 

 of the Council. Four new Fellows were elected, 

 viz., the Hon. N. C. Rothschild (Life), Hon. A. 

 Dobson, Captain Goland Clarke, D.S.O., and Mr. 

 L. J. Bonhote. Mr. J. A. Brooke was elected a 

 Life Member, and seventeen ordinary Members 

 were elected. 



At the December meeting there were present : 

 Mr. Montagu Sharpe, Chairman, Mr. Ernest Bell, 

 Mr, H. E. Dresser, Hon. Alfred Dobson, K.C., 

 Hon. Mrs. Drewitt, Miss Hall, Rev. A. L. Hussey, 

 Mr. F. King, Mr. Hastings Lees, Mrs. Lemon, 

 Miss Pollock, Mr. Howard Saunders, Mr. Trevor- 

 Battye, Mrs. Owen Visger, the Hon. Secretary, 

 and the Secretary. Various subjects referred to 

 the Council from the Autumn Conference were dis- 

 cussed, also preliminary arrangements for Watchers 

 in 1906. Lady Hooker, Miss E. L. Turner, and 

 Miss Vertue were elected Fellows, the Rev. H. N. 

 Bonar, Life Member, and seventeen ordinary 

 Members were elected. 



COUNTY COUNCIL ORDERS. 



Cambridge, Nov. 17th, 1905. E.F. Same as 

 that of 1904, with Little Owl added to Great 

 Bustard and Goldfinch for all-the-year protection. 



Devonshire, Nov. 2nd, 1905. A.B.C.D.E.F. 

 Identical with that of 1903, with the addition of 

 the Clovelly district to the list of areas where all 

 eggs are protected, and extension of the time for 

 such protection to the end of 1910. 



Gloucestershire, Nov. 9th, 1905. C.D.E.F.S. 

 Practically the same as that of 1902, but deprives 

 the Wood-Pigeon as well as House-Sparrow of 

 protection, and gives complete protection to the 

 Lapwing and its eggs. 



Norfolk, Nov. 6th, 1905. A.B.C.E.F.S. Iden- 

 tical with that of 1901, but completely protects 

 Bittern and Little Bittern and their eggs. (Gold- 

 finch still left without winter protection.) 



BARON VON BERLEPSCH'S BIRD 



COLONIES. 



[Mrs. Visger — "J. A. Owen"— is contributing an 

 article entitled "A Bird Sanctuary" to the Pall 

 Mall Magazine, from which we give some notes 

 here, with her permission.] 



Baron von Berlepsch, whose book on " Prac- 

 tical Methods of Bird Protection" has been trans- 

 lated into nine European languages, and 5500 

 copies of which work were bought and distributed 

 over Germany by the Ministry of Agriculture, 

 has devoted seven hundred acres of his estate, 

 Schlossgat Seebach, in the northern part of Thur- 

 ingen, to the cause of bird protection : first, by 

 planting it with such trees and bushes as are 

 favourable for their nesting habits ; then supple- 

 menting further boxes in which the birds can 

 safely nest and bring out their young ; and, finally, 

 providing the birds with the necessary winter pro- 

 vender in a cold and exposed region, where they 

 must otherwise perish by thousands from hunger 

 and exposure during the severe season. These 

 bird sanctuaries are situated in the centre of a 

 wide agricultural district, which has little cover for 

 birds. 



I visited Schlossgat Seebach this summer and 

 cannot say too much in praise of the foresight 

 shown in all the arrangements on this large 

 domain, which is, indeed, in spring-time a busy 

 city of feathered inhabitants. Of three thousand 

 nesting-boxes securely and fittingly placed, ninety- 

 five out of every hundred were occupied this 

 spring. In one thicket (a little stretch planted 

 with long bushes) there were one hundred nests 

 built by the birds — three nests to every yard — 

 that is of the rate of a nest to each foot of space. 

 This would have appeared incredible to me had 

 I not myself inspected the nests. One beautiful 

 nest of the Garden Singer {Hypolais polyglotta) 

 had shreds of silver-birch bark interwoven with its 

 grasses and lichen. The Song Thrush and the 

 Redbreast, which build so freely in our own 

 gardens, only nest in the woods, as a rule, in 

 Thuringen ; the Thrush comes here, however, to 

 nest, but the Redbreast never. 



The Lesser Grey Shrikes had been driven away 

 by a colony of two hundred Fieldfares that have been 

 led to nest here in a long avenue of black poplars 

 alternating with pollard willows, which are care- 

 fully topped and trimmed so as to make the side 

 branches stronger for the support of the nests, 

 which are built between the forks of these and 

 the main trunk. Fieldfare nests are unknown in 

 England and are rare in Germany ; they are more 



