Birds 



8027 



Redstart; a single male seen. Wheatears and chiff-chaffs numerous. 31st. Sand- 

 martin ; one off Bembridge Harbour. Though most of these hare at different times 

 been noticed in March, I believe the occurrence, at this early date, of no less than six 

 of the summer birds of passage in one locality is very remarkable. — A. G. More ; Bern- 

 bridge, Isle of Wight, April, 1862. 



Protection of Small Birds. — In the same way that it is found necessary by law to 

 protect the workers in mines against their own folly and carelessness, by rendering the 

 use of an unguarded light an indictable offence, it ic no less important, at the present 

 time, that some steps should be taken to stay the cruel and suicidal practice of many 

 agriculturists of destroying indiscriminately our small birds, by means of poisoned 

 wheat. Had we not the express warning before our eyes of the inevitable result of 

 such a system, in the frightful ravages of insect life on the Continent, to abate which, 

 at the present time, the most stringent laws are now being enforced to stay the 

 slaughter of the " farmers' friends," the -slightest reflection must convince anyone, 

 capable of reasoning power, that the wholesale destruction of one class of God's crea- 

 tures, purposely designed by their Maker to fill an appointed place in the order of 

 Nature, must destroy that wonderful balance observable in the animal kingdom, by 

 which the necessities of each particular class are made available to keep down the 

 excess of others. The hawks and the owls prey on the surplus of the feathered tribe 

 and the smaller vermin that infest our homesteads, and but for the almost total anni- 

 hilation of the former by keepers, on account of the game, the large flocks of finches 

 and other small birds would be thinned in a far more natural and legitimate way than 

 by the arsenic and strychnine of the secret poisoner. To the small birds also, in their 

 turn, ic assigned^the task of keeping down the teeming myriads of insect life which 

 threaten, but for such intervention, to render the land a barren waste ; and though 

 man only too effectively can devise the means of exterminating the feathered tribes, 

 where will he find a substitute for those little microscopic eyes that pry into every bud 

 and plant and crevice, and pick up millions of little atoms from the soil, too small for 

 human .vision, yet terrible in their numbers. If, then, their allotted work throughout 

 the universe is one of such immense importance, may we not consider them entitled, in 

 return, to some portion of that grain they, and they only, have preserved to our use. 

 We admit it is often a vexatious sight for the farmer to see the long rows of empty ears 

 skirting the fences of his wheat and barley fields ; but if the hawks are not with us to 

 do their work, the gun, the snare, the net and the clappers will at least avail as much as 

 they ever did before the reckless system now in vogue caused wholesale massacres in 

 every county. The 1 Stamford Mercury' states that at Spalding and Holbeach men 

 have appeared on market days " with hundreds of linnets, finches, sparrows, and other 

 small birds (which they have poisoned) strung round them like beads, as trophies and 

 an advertisement of their odious calling." The editor of the 4 Cambridge Independent' 

 also says : — " We saw on Thursday morning a labourer in Chesterton fields throwing 

 poisoned wheat broadcast around the hedges and trees," and that " one chemist alone 

 in Cambridge prepares two bushels per week of wheat mixed with strychnine for the 

 destruction of the harmless and beautiful feathered tribe." Hitherto the poisoning 

 has been apparently confined to the autumn and winter months, when old and young 

 birds frequent the growing corn, or seek subsistence during frost and snow from the 

 stores of grain in barns and stack-yards. Now, however, it is continued during the 

 spring, with no doubt the stupid and short-sighted notion of destroying the old birds 

 before breeding commences. Have these wiseacres never reflected that all our resi- 



