THE NATURALIST 
FOR 1922. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
A SHEFFIELD GRIEVANCE. 
Our sympathy certainly goes to our colleague at the 
Sheffield Museum, Mr. E. Howarth. Some little time ago he 
had to part with a fine collection of silver found in Sheffield, 
which was claimed by the Government, and was distributed 
to various museums ; and now he has lost a White -tailed 
Eagle (which has already been referred to in The Naturalist) 
which was shot by Lord Talbot’s keeper. In shooting this 
rare bird, after attempts had been made by the Royal Society 
for the Protection of Birds, and by the Yorkshire Wild Birds 
Protection Committee, and by others, to preserve it, the keeper 
committed an offence against the law, and the Bench ordered 
the confiscation of the bird and its deposit in the Derby 
Museum, the bird having been shot in that county. Mr. 
Howarth, in a long letter to The Sheffield Telegraph, quite 
unnecessarily criticises the ‘ Wild Birds Protection Society 
for its action, which was quite a proper one, and has the 
support of all Yorkshire Naturalists. Mr. Howarth endeav- 
ours to suggest that the shooting of the bird was necessary, 
as it had practically cleared the moors of game, and was shot 
while devouring a sheep ! This point is quite a new feature 
in the life-history of this species, unless, of course, the sheep 
was ‘ planted ’ in order to secure an easy shot ! Possibly 
Lord Talbot had his own reasons for sending the bird to 
Sheffield after the Justices had decided that it should go to 
Derby; but whatever those reasons were, we feel that we can 
hardly be surprised at the action of the Justices in announcing 
that it should go to the Museum in the county in which it 
was destroyed. 
GOLDEN EAGLES. 
All this, of course, is very annoying to Sheffield and its 
Curator. In his general account, under the head of ‘ Wild 
Birds,’ Mr. Howarth makes some extraordinary statements. 
He refers to the difference between the Golden Eagle and the 
White-tailed Eagle, and then makes the startling announce- 
ment ‘ no Golden Eagle has visited England for sixty years/ 
How it is possible to make such a statement as this, it is diffi- 
cult to understand, as a reference to Nelson’s ‘ Birds of 
Yorkshire,’ published by the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union,, 
would have indicated that the Golden Eagle has visited 
1922 Jan. 1 
A 
