18 
BY THE WAYSJDE 
hospitality. Delicate and graceful in 
form absolutely harmless in its life, 
everyone knows the services which the 
swallow performs in return for the pro¬ 
tection it claims amongst us. But the 
trouble is that our*neighbors' apprecia¬ 
tion of the bird takes another direc¬ 
tion. To them it represents, in com¬ 
mon with almost everything else that 
wears feathers, something which can 
be captured, especially during the sea¬ 
sons of migration, with little difficulty, 
and afterwards may be made to con¬ 
tribute a toothsome item to a pie or 
stew. It is shocking, but nevertheless 
a fact, and in spring and autumn any¬ 
one may see in the French market¬ 
places scores and hundreds of luckless 
little birds, swallows, chaffinches, rob¬ 
ins, sparrows, indiscriminately strung 
up by their necks and offered for sale 
at a few pence a dozen. 
The result of course, is that small 
birds are non-existent in French towns, 
and far scarcer in the country districts 
than in England. This is bad for 
French agriculture, for corn and vines 
and every kind of crop; for, although 
it is true that a great many birds take 
a modest share of the agriculturist’s 
harvest, yet it is equally certain that 
at other seasons they more than repay 
these depredations by the amount of 
harmful insect life they destroy. 
Swallows are an especially easy victim 
to the French fowler who caters for 
the market. On their northward mi¬ 
grations in spring they cross the Med¬ 
iterranean in a steady stream, flying 
low over the surface of the water, and 
the French Sportsman, knowing this 
habit, erects miles of fine netting, sup¬ 
ported on light poles, along the beach. 
Into this snare the weary birds plunge 
headlong, the net collapses over them, 
and the fowler and his assistants are 
kept busy running up and clown the 
line extracting and strangling the un¬ 
fortunate strangers. In Corsica and 
manv other islands in the Mediterra- 
1/ 
nean the brush-wood of the hillsides 
at certain seasons swarms with birds, 
which are netted and shot ruthlessly, 
their mangled bodies being afterwards 
tossed into wicker hampers and con¬ 
signed to Marseilles and other centers, 
where plucked and disguised, they 
figure on many menus under more dis¬ 
tinguished names than those which 
really belong to them. It is no good 
for England, or for Germany—which 
latter country has been honorably 
associated with her in this matter—to 
protect beautiful and harmless birds, 
if France, which lies across the path of 
their annual wanderings, destroys 
them wholesale. But if France and 
Italy join with us, then the fortunes of 
the swallow and its kindred would be 
mended, and agriculture in general 
greatly benefited. Almost every civil¬ 
ized country, recognizing that senti¬ 
ment and human advantage go hand 
in hand in this matter, is falling into 
line with England, which has led the 
way in bird protecting; and is today 
rewarded, bv a wealth of feathered life 
such as no other country in Europe 
can boast of. But the swallow particu¬ 
larly needs guardianship at the pres¬ 
ent moment, and it is to be hoped that 
this will now be provided through the 
initiative of the Koval Societv for flu* 
Protection of Birds and a friendly ex¬ 
change of opinions between the gov* 
crnments of the countries in which it 
makes its summer home.” 
