BIRDS IN FRANCE.
Very good news reaches me of the increase of birds, especially small birds, in one part of the South of France, where they have been most persistently shot by local " sportsmen," mostly of tender years. The multiplication is chiefly due to the sanctuaries set up by the Due de Noailles, as at Hyeres. There is a sanctuary also, though on a small and rather ingenuous scale at St. Raphael among the rapidly multiplying villas. The object is specifically economic, to encourage birds that are directly useful to husbandry ; but the love of birds, as such, grows steadily in France, though it is nowhere nearly so strong among the Latin people as among the Nordic. Fauvette is still thought precise enough in French literature and common speech to describe any small bird from tit to finch. Nevertheless, knowledge and affection grow, if slowly. The more modern books do not describe the robin as a bird which " se mange bien avec des miettes " His song becomes precious and his appetite " economic." The French are encouraging bird protection also in Morocco ; and not without some success.
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