BIRDS AND MAN
BIRD Protection in England, which has since the outset of this century risen from the limbo of crank reforms to ir height of which its founders hardly dared to dream, would yet gain much if its directors at the present day were more logical and more far-seeing. Underlying its activities are two separate ideas, so inco- herent and so little spoken of that a psycho-analyst might almost call them suppressed desires. The first is to save rare birds from being exterminated in Britain by human agency, in the way that too many have already been exterminated. The second is to promote good will between birds and man. Sanctuaries in the parks, nesting-boxes, Bird - and Tree Competitions, are all directed towards this latter end. The Royal Society for the Protection of Wild Birds happens to be orthodox and Mr. Lewis Loyd heretical on the question of Whether equal protection ought to be given to all birds, for it certainly should. If any birds; however supposedly villainous, are to be shot by their protectors, sanity goes to the winds. But in his prejudiced Indictment there is this much truth, that the funds of the cause would be spent to better effect if the policy of the Society were framed with more thought to the future. It may even be possible to do some of the thinking for it.
The ideal end of its policy would be a state of affairs in which complete trust and friendship existed between Birds and Man. A bird would have no more fear of a man than a starling has of a sheep : better still, it might actually fly to meet him as eagerly as a Hyde Park sparrow. Like the Noble Savage period this state of things never has existed : like Utopia it probably never will. But there is a mass of evidence, from our grand- mothers' " anecdotes " to the Report of the Bird Sanc- tuaries Committee, and from travellers' tales to everyday scenes in the London parks, which proves how much might be done towards it. The comparative shyness of our wild birds, though it has certainly increased within the last four generations, is not merely a habit forced upon them by recent persecution. Species which are hard to approach in England are often just as wary in the heart of Africa—the hawfineh is a well-known example. An Elizabethan account of a great invasion of erossbilk remarks :- "and the thingo most to be noted was, that it seemed they come out of some country not inhabited : for that they at the first would abide shooting at them, either with pellet, howl or other engine. . .
They were soon taught wisdom apparently, but the value of the extract lies chiefly in its negative sense. It shows that most British birds were at that time already afraid of man. From the glorious simplicity of the earlier methods of bird-catching by driving into nets, such as Willughby and Ray illustrate in their quaint woodcuts, it is likely, all the same, that the caution of our birds has increased in proportion to the range and reliability of our firearms. Even a hundred years ago birds on the Northern hills were not all accustomed to regard man as an enemy. Heywood, who shot dotterels and took their eggs on the Lakeland mountains in 1835, mentioned that " they appeared to be so very indifferent with regard to our presence that at last my assistant could not avoid exclaiming, What stupid birds these are ! ' " They also were taught wisdom that day : before he left, Heywood found the few survivors " more wary."
The lesson of persecution has been a long and bitter one : the birds which survive are the birds which have learnt it best. It is not to be expected that it can quickly be forgotten by all, though the more intelligent are quick to notice a change of attitude. When the Allies began the occupation of the Rhineland six years ago, all weapons in the hands of the civil population were confiscated, only a few light firearms for the shooting of game or the reduction of sparrows being excepted. The Waffenverbot had results of great interest and importance for Bird Protection, some of which I described in the Field (January 25th, 1928). Rooks, which had hitherto been scarce and wild, began to build in the towns for the first time : magpies grew almost aggressively tame within a few months, and I have nowhere been able to watch the buzzard or the hobby at such close quarters or so often as within a few miles of Cologne, a city as populous as Manchester. Hawks increased, and the large birds began to take once more that con- spicuous place of which only our destructive civilization has deprived them. For the trouble with bird life in the South of England is certainly not that there is too little of it, but that the forms are too small. The large birds are nearly all gone, and the few which remain exist only by virtue of a self:effacement which makes the most distant glimpse of them a rare event. But even long persecution has failed to implant in the large birds more than a temporary habit of caution. As soon as the guns are laid down they are themselves again, for fear is not in their nature. We shall see the great hawks once more in England as soon as we deserve to see them. But there is a poisonous heresy abroad which may well, if it spreads, bring down Bird Protection to an episode of the Men of Gotham and the numbers of our great birds to nought—the heresy of " scientific pro- tection." This means, briefly, the shooting of the magnificent predatory birds to save our sentimental selves from having to watch them eat smaller ones. It should be made an article of faith that Bird Protection is the Protection of Birds, not the Protection of Some Birds by Shooting Others. A great hawk flying is an inspiring sight : if we cannot bear to have the price paid in prey which its maintenance requires, we do not deserve to see it.
It is the experience of the Rhineland that the cessation of unnecessary persecution alters the attitude of the larger birds towards men, and raises them to their proper position in bird life. But the essential point is that the change has been brought about, not by any friendly advances on man's part, but simply by removing the sting from the worst human enemies of birds. For that reason the policy of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in this direction seems to me the wrong one. No matter how many sanctuaries there are, how many nesting-boxes, how many bird-lovers, so long as there remains in England that little minority of persecutors there will be no essential change in the attitude of birds towards man. The first duty of protection is to pull out the sting.
There exists, all the same, a certain extremist sect which would only leave man in the world on sufferance' and dedicate the use of it primarily to birds. It is enough for the point of view to be stated. The basis of protection must clearly be'to concede to the established interests of birds only what may be conceded without sacrificing the best interests of man. Game-shooting' should remain, " egging " at Flamborough and elsewhere: (where it is an established industry not affecting the' number of birds), the shooting of sparrows and other' undoubted pests by farmers, and birds-nesting by boys; of school age. The things which most damage the. Uncommon species and, being altogether unnecessary, ought to be suppressed, are the continuance of private collections of birds' skins and eggs, bird-catching, and the destruction of owls and hawks by gamekeepers. The harmfulness of, these practices is obvious and well known. For the first the. only excuse (apart from a. hollow pretence of science) is the gratification of a clique of rich individuals with perverted tastes ; for the third, the same ; for the second, the gratification of a few hundred poorer ones in like case. These last. three are the only unnatural practices it is not strange that they are also the only seriously harmful ones. For man: is a part of Nature, and in the balance of Nature it is not overlooked that a man can do more damage than. a weasel. Setting aside its impracticability, total. abstention from the taking of bird life might quite conceivably upset the balance once more as much as it has been upset now through- man becoming more mischievous than a hundred thousand weasels..
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