BIRD PROTECTION IN EUROPE.
WE have reached an interesting stage in the progress of bird protection, and there will probably be many readers of an essay which has just been published on the subject by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (23 Queen Anne's Gate, S.W., is. net). The author of the essay is Mr. A. Hoke Macpherson, who was awarded the Society's Gold Medal for the best treatise on "The Compara- tive Legislation for the Protection of Birds," dealing in particulitr with the laws in force in the various countries of Europe, and a comparison of these laws with the regulations enforced in our own country. The first feeling of many readers, we believe, on glancing over Mr. Macpherson's essay, and the notes from Colonel Momber's essay which follow it, will be one of considerable surprise at the very large number of laws dealing with bird protection already existing on the Continent. Of European countries, there are only four or five in which no serious effort has yet been made to encourage birds useful to the farmer, or to prevent the persecution of harmless birds either for amusement or for food. In Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland the legislation is not only extensive but precise, and evidently a great deal of trouble has been taken by the central authorities in deciding what birds are to be included in the different schedules. In Spain the laws are fairly stringent; but they do not appear to be enforced. In Roumania, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, and, unfortunately, in Italy practically nothing is done to protect any kind of bird, and in Italy in particular, which stands in the very centre of the flight of migrating birds, the slaughter of the migrants is so hideously large that it is doubtful whether any extensive results could be achieved in the countries lying on her borders until Italian legislation has joined hands in the work of protection. That is a point to which, in surveying other conditions and the restrictions of oilier countries, it is impossible not to return again and again.
As regards Great Britain, we have seen enough of the working of our own laws to be able to estimate, however roughly, their general effect, and the consequences which would follow any alteration. The Wild Birds' Preservation Act of 1880 has left our position in one respect unaltered. We have never regained, and indeed we are still gradually losing, the larger birds which used to nest with us. Kites . and hawks in general have found the gamekeeper too much for them, and the egg-collector, particularly in the case of the kite, has proved as rapacious and unscrupulous as collectors can sometimes be. The bustard has never returned since it left Norfolk in 1838, and the bittern, which possibly might be induced to breed every year, every season is shot. On the other hand, the effect of the laws in force has undoubtedly increased the numbers of some of the smaller
species. With the law at their back, the Royal Society have been enabled to employ watchers on certain areas along the Southern and Eastern coasts, and without doubt this has resulted in the increase of interesting birds which were becoming rarer, if indeed some of them were not nearly extinct, such as the Kentish plover, ringed plover, stone curlew, and the common and ' lesser terns. Of birds of inland waters, again, we have added largely to the numbers of' the great crested grebe. But with the general increase in . small bird life, other serious questions have arisen, -which have had to be answered by the farmer and the 'fruit-grower. The bullfinch, for instance, is in most places protected by County Council Orders, but probably no fruit- grower would have a word to say for him. He is one of our handsomest birds, but he is also one of the most destruc- tive. The blackcap, of the migrants only second as a. singer to the nightingale, is getting an unhappy reputation among the market gardener's fruit-treeS. Chaffinches are disliked by fruit-growers, but without doubt they destroy enormous quantities of insects. Larks, again, are often accused of taking autumn-sown wheat; but to balance that, in some districts very little wheat is sown, and all larks are great insect-eaters. It is clearly impossible to insist that regulations shall be uniform throughout the country as regards these birds, and there are other species whose protection suggests equally difficult problems. Some of the gulls, which were rightly protected in many districts, in other districts have developed into a pest, and have taken, as Sir Herbert Maxwell tells us in his preface to Mr. Macpherson's essay, to picking out salmon smelts on their way through the shallows of Scottish rivers to the sea. Kingfishers are another difficulty.
, Kingfishers have increased in many districts, particularly in the Thames Valley, and if they restricted themselves to minnows and gudgeon nobody would have a word to say against them. But in bard weather, and in times of flood; they cannot get at their ordinary food-supply, and when
, they resort to less secure feeding-grounds than the Thames they are often destroyed, in spite of the -law, in large numbers. The present writer heard of as Many as sixty being killed on the banks of a single trout hatchery in one• of the Home Counties during a week of heavy rain when the river was in flood. No proceedings were taken, though the fact that the birds were destroyed was perfectly well known locally. It was felt, presumably, that it was unfair to expect the owners of the hatchery to bear the whole expense of the king- , fishers' protection. At the same time, there would be no great expense involved in enclosing the ponds containing the smaller fry with wire-netting ;' and in any case, the hatching of trout being an entirely artificial business, those engaged in it might fairly be asked to undertake the extra expense involved, and to pass it on to their clients. Whatever is bad in the present system, nothing is so bad as the fact that the law exists and is disregarded.
We are certainly not blameless as a nation in the matter of putting laws on our statute-book and then omitting to see they are properly enforced. But we can claim, perhaps, that each successive year sees at all events some addition to the efforts made to protect and tO rescue from cruel persecution our English birds. Last year, for instance, largely owing to the efforts of a Single naturalist, Mr. W. H. Hudson, a law was passed making it illegal to catch any bird by means of the teagle, an abominable trap by which starving birds were caught with baited fish-hooks. As regards the migration of birds over Europe, perhaps Germany, which took the lead in 1864: in matters of bird protection, would be the country best qualified to appeal to other countries for further legislation on the subject. Bat if an
. appeal is to be made to Italy in particular of the countries bordering the Mediterranean to assist the passing of fresh laws protecting migrating birds, might not the appeal come from Englishmen ? English and Italian thought have invariably had so much in common, and have for so long worked towards the same ideals, that we feel sure there will come a time when . Italians generally will condemn as barbarities the annual massacres of birds passing through Italy to and from their . nesting-homes in Northern Europe. Even on the most utilitarian grounds, the slaughter of countless thousands of insect-destroying birds must be of incalculable harm to Italian agriculture and forestry. Any one who visits the almost birdies° districts of France and Switzerland lying next the Italian border must be struck by the enormous damage done by the unchecked increase of insect life. Apart from all utilitarian considerations, the loss On aesthetic grounds of so much beauty, in the plumage of the birds and their song, is again incalculable, and we are confident that in course of time the whole Italian nation, besides those educated Italians
who already advocate bird protection, will come to see that there is something. better to be done with the bird life of their country than to destroy it wholesale. But, once more, we mutt own that Englishmen would make an appeal such as this with a better grace if their own record were entirely clean. In one respect it is still a disgrace to progressive humanity. Of the hundreds of thousands of birds which every spring cross the Mediterranean to try to find a nesting-home in Northern Europe, one of the weakest fliers, and one of the most easily caught, is the quail. All along the coast of the Mediterranean where the quails alight, too tired to fly further, they are netted by the hundred thousand for exportation alive as food. One of the chief markets is London. In bringing the quails to London thousands of birds die on the voyage ; the stench in the ships which carry the crowded crates is intolerable ; and only a small proportion of the birds actually caught find their way to Leadenhall and other markets. The quails which Englishmen eat in the spring and early summer months in England are actually the very birds who set out travelling north to seek the hospitality of British shores in the nesting season. How many London hostesses arranging dinner parties in the season think of that? 'Until we are rid of that reproach we cannot as a people ask our European neighbours to add a line to their statute-books in legislation for birds. But there are Englishmen, as we are sure there are Italians, who feel differently from others of their countrymen as regards the selfishness of epicures, and we may hope that the links between English and Italian thought on this matter are already growing stronger. There is, of course, no more objection per se to eating quails than to eating partridges, pheasants, or Dorking fowls, but we ought not to allow the demand for quails for the table to encourage the taking of the birds, and the bringing them to England, under conditions of wanton cruelty and waste.
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