24 
NATURE NOTES 
forward blow, too. It should be welcome to Selbornians. The 
scene is a country road, and the road is crowded by men, boys 
and one lady in a carriage — each person carries either gun 
(some double barrels) or pistol ; the legend is ‘ In defence of 
their country ? Oh, dear, no. Fact is, a rare bird has been 
seen at the brick ponds a little further down the road ! ’ Well 
done, Mr. Punch, our compliments to you.” 
Wild Birds’ Protection Acts. — “Bird catching, bird 
nesting and indiscriminate shooting,” writes a correspondent, 
“ appear to go on in most places unchecked, just as though the 
acts were non-existent, it being apparently nobody’s business 
to enforce them ; ” but a correspondent writes to The Standard 
from Wimbledon Park, “ I think it only just to acknowledge 
the powerful and effective help The Standard has rendered in 
the redress of an intolerable nuisance. I refer to the hitherto 
perpetual slaughter of our native song-birds and other small 
birds on Sundays. The ventilation of this topic in the letters 
that have appeared in The Standard has sufficed to put an entire 
stop to this nuisance since the appearance of the correspondence 
on ‘ Sunday Morning with the Gun ’ in your columns.” 
A Prospective Sanctuary. — The East London Water Com- 
pany propose to construct two reservoirs on what is now Ching- 
ford Marsh, each of which will be over a mile and a-half long 
and over half-a-square mile in area. The Rector of Chingford, 
Mr. Russell, who has held the living for a long time, and is a 
keen naturalist, says in a letter, quoted by The Standard — “ The 
Marsh used to be the resting-place of many wild birds, but the 
Cockney gunners now frighten everything away. I have fre- 
quently seen heron, duck, teal, curlew, snipe, sandpiper, kestrel, 
sparrow-hawk, &c. One of my terriers caught a water-rail once 
on the river bank. Otters appear from time to time ; two were 
shot the other day, and a third has been seen lately, but I fear 
will not long escape the gun. There used to be a few polecats, 
but I have not heard of any during the last fifteen years.” 
“ Everyone,” continues The Standard, “ who knows what Sunday 
is like on the Marsh will understand how all living things 
have been terrified from it. For a long time it has been a 
favourite resort of Hackney gunners. But if the East London 
Water Company go on with their scheme of two great lakes 
it is obvious that all this will be changed. A Water Company 
is not, indeed, likely of its own initiative to take any particular 
care of our fauna and avi-fauna, but its officials are bound, for 
reasons of their own, to keep away intruders. Probably, too, 
they will make an island in the middle, if it be only for the 
purpose of getting rid of the mould removed during excavation. 
Thus an ideal sanctuary will be formed. Any pool connected 
with the Lea is sure to stock itself with fish, and we hope that 
the creatures which prey on them will be undisturbed. In a 
