Rare British Birds. 
Rare British Birds. 
Reprinted from The Times, with our thanks and apologies to the Edit'^rs an<l 
Author. — Editor B.N. — Cutting per Rev. G. H. Raynor, M.A 
WATCHERS AT WORK. 
(From a Correspondent). 
On the western edge of England, looking straight across toward- 
Newfoundland, is a great green-topped hill or promontory rising from the 
sea and curiously hooked out from the mainland, with which it is connected 
chiefly by causeway and boat. Its sharply descending rocky faco is the 
n;sting-place of peregrine and raven; about its edge, white in sea'or with 
t'.ie flowers of the rare white rock-rose, the rock-pipit soars and parachutes; 
the goldfinch, linnet, and other small birds play and s'ng among ti e gorse 
and bramble, the lark rises from the grass; the sandy flat at its foct is one 
of the chief breeding-places of the beautiful shelduck. 
There are few more delightful haunts of the birds, and only 'n summer 
does the tripper trouble it. A few years ago it was infested by c. .'lectors 
birds were fast decreasing, some of those now bleeding were wholly 
unknown there. The change is fair proof of the value of setting apiTt legally 
protected areas or sanctuaries, and of the necessity for having such areas 
v.^atched and guarded with the vigilance displayed here by the watchers of 
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 
In 1894 Mr. W. H. Hudson calculated that some 30 species of wild 
birds had either become extinct in England or were a'most past hope. Not 
merely because of the draining and cultivation of kind, to which ] opular 
theory generally attributes a bird's disappearance, but through the ieiorance. 
stupidity, and cupidity of man. The man is the gamekeeper, the man with 
the gun, or the collector; and the greattst of the three is unquestionably the 
collector. 
The kite, once London's scavenger, is reduced to a few pair.-, on the 
Welsh borderland, who would have followed bustard and crane into the lan;l 
of have-beens but for night and day protection. The bearded tit depends 
for safety on the keepers of the Norfolk Broads. The Dartford warbler 
that elusive sprite of the furze, has long been tracked to destruction so far 
as collectors could discover its haunts, and in recent years these haui ts have 
manv of them been sw'ept over — w"th what results it is as yet impossible 
fully to tell — by the all-obliterating military camp. Ihe harmless and hand 
some honey-buzzard has disappeared since the days when the Nev.- Forest 
was scoured for its eggs at any price. The hen and marsh harr-'ers, the 
bittern, the spoonbill, and the avocet are practically lost to us, though the 
boom of the bittern has been heard again in Broadland. 
Happily a considerable number of infrequent, rare, or c'erreas'ng 
species have been taken in hand, and happily taken in time, by the society, 
which maintains a staff of watchers on breeding grounds in various part= 
of England. Wales, and Scotland. Not the least interesting, perhaps, is the 
handsome chough, whose scarlet beak and legs distinguish him from all the 
rest of the corvine tribe. He was at one time fairly common in inland 
