THE RARE BIRDS OF BREYDON WATER: THEIR PROTECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The Breydon Wild Birds' Protection Society have asked me to make an appeal on behalf of their admirable work, and I turn to the Spectator as a very present help in such a need. The situation is briefly as follows. The flats, marshes, and shallows of Breydon Water are, it is calculated, visited by more rare birds than in any other definite area of these islands. Its stars are the avocet and the spoonbill, and between 1888 (the year of the foundation of the Breydon Birds' Protection Society) and 1900 ninety-three spoonbills were recorded on the Water. They are not the only brilliant members of the cast—godwits, bitterns, wild swans, goosanders, shovellers, golden-eye, shel- ducks, black terns, Caspian terns, and many other very rare or uncommon species being included at various times in it. Before the formation of the society the birds were slaughtered as soon as seen by the gunners, and as they became rare (bittern, spoon- bill, and avocet were once common nesting species in England) the collectors took a hand, tempting the local men with high prices to procure the rarer breeding birds. Breydon Water has a European reputation among ornithologists, and the difficulties a local society had, and has, to contend with against the baser sort, never resting in their wholly selfish wiles to exterminate the rare birds and thus ruin the enjoyment of normal people and the study of the true observer, may be imagined.
Breydon is the Mecca of bird-lovers and ornithologists, and yet the preservation of its rarities has depended solely upon the efforts of patriotic local naturalists and well-wishers, whose society has never had more than .830 during all the years except five since 1888, and in 1902 the funds sank to .816. It has been recently reconstituted, with Mr. J. H. Gurney, F.Z.S., as president, in place of Mr. A. R. Buxton, the son of the founder, Dr. S. H. Long, F.Z.S., as hon. treasurer, and Mr. H. H. Halls, St. Stephen's Plain, Norwich, as hon. secretary. It is wonder- ful what great things small sums can achieve when the spirit is high. The new committee of a society which has maintained a watcher for thirty-three years declare that they must have outside help to continue their work and keep the wolf from the fold. They are right, for Breydon is the concern of all bird-lovers. Will not the readers of the Spectator, who are of the kind who value life more than death, come to the rescue of the society and send what they can spare to Mr. Halls?—I am,
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