THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 
33 
Look at this ball of intractable fluff, 
Panting and staring with piteous eyes ! 
What a rebellion of heart ! what a ruff 
Tickles my hand as the missel-thrush tries, 
Pecking my hand with her termagant bill. 
How to escape (and I love her, the sweet '.) 
Back where the clustering oaks on the hill 
Climb to the blue with their branches, and meet ! 
Nay, polished beak, you are pecking a friend ! 
Bird of the grassland, you bleed at the wing ! 
Stay with me, love, in captivity mend 
Wrong that was wrought by the boy and his sling. 
O for a priest of the birds to arise. 
Wonderful words on his lips that persuade 
Reasoning creatures to leave to the skies 
Song at its purest a-throb in the glade ! 
Bow, woodland heart, to the yoke for a while ! 
Soon shall the lyrics of wind in the trees 
Stir you to pipe in the green forest-aisle, 
God send me there with the grass to my knees ! 
See, I am stroking my cheek with your breast. 
Ah, how the bountiful velvet is fair ! 
Stay with me here for your healing and rest. 
Stay, for I love you, delight of the air ! 
THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 
The Second Annual Report of the Society for the Protection of Birds is 
remarkable for two things — the steady progress in organisation which it is 
making, as evinced by the long list of local secretaries, and the entire absence of 
any recognition of the work of the Selborne Society. The first feature is a very 
gratifying one, and we cordially tender our congratulations to Mrs. Phillips and 
Miss Poland, on the success which has attended their efforts. As to the 
second, it seems to us a matter for regret that, in so wide a field of labour, the 
efforts of fellow-workers should not receive hearty recognition. For our own 
part, we welcome the aid of the many organisations which take up the same 
work upon which we are employed. The more channels through which right 
views about Nature can be disseminated, the better ; there is room for all, and 
abundant occupation for each. 
The Report, though not long, contains many excellent things. Nothing can 
be better, for instance, than the following extract from Bishop ThirlwalPs Letters, 
to a Friend (p. 213). 
“I love that companionable goldfinch. I hope he has strengthened your 
abhorrence of the infamous persecution of his sweet race, which is now going on 
with redoubled fury under the basest pretexts, and from the vilest motives, by 
land and sea, and which threatens some branches of the family with extermina- 
tion. The systematic destruction of small birds under pretence of their doing 
injury to agriculture, to which they were doing most valuable service, was bad 
enough. . . . But the massacre of myriads of sea-fowl, involving the 
starvation of many more myriads of their bereaved young, all for the sake of a 
little additional ornament for ladies’ bonnets, fills me with grief and indigna- 
tion. I conjure you never to wear a single feather that has been so obtained, 
and to use all your influence to dissuade your friends from doing so.” 
Plere is another telling passage: “Certainly nothing can well be more 
savage in design than a bonnet-trimming bought a few weeks ago for three 
shillings, and described on an appended paper as made in Paris, sold in London, 
and duly numbered for further orders. The chief feature is the lovely little head 
