3 AUGUST 1944, Page 11

Birds and Farmers

The views of the Ministry of Agriculture on ornithology have been severely criticised; and rightly, if some of the county War Agricultural Committees have been acting and preaching under the Ministry's encouragement ; but it must be acknowledged that it is doing some very good work in association with the British Trust for Ornithology ; and many- wise things have been printed in its Journal on the need for the protection of birds. On the question of sparrow clubs, which were at one time widely recommended, it records this example of a club in action. 'A collection of ' sparrows ' handed in for the usual reward of so much per head included the following birds: 27 sparrows, 8 dunnocks, 5 hen chaffinches, 2 meadow pipits, r willow warbler, t garden warbler "; and this collection is described as probably typical. When once the hunt is up anything may happen, and it is certainly not the case that country boys know their birds. They generally do not.