PLOVERS FOR SALE.
In London this Easter there were on sale both plover's eggs and dead plover. Where the question was asked, the sellers expressed themselves as quite unable to say whether or no the birds or eggs were British. Nothing more distresses a countryman than the sight of green plover, or yet more of larks, hung up for sale in the towns. Their destruction is not worth the while, even of the greediest gourmet. If we wish to protect such birds on behalf of cultivation or of humanity, it is much the most easily done by regulation at the selling end. Supposing we allow the sale of imported birds; the burden of proof should be laid on the seller. But it would be simpler and more humane to prohibit the sale altogether. No one would be the worse ; and the birds and the farms would be very much better. On the question of the food of birds, several new crimes have recently been attributed to the pheasant. It is alleged to eat the green needles of young conifers ; and I have myself seen a bed of Anemone fulgens cleared by pheasants. But when all is said no bird in the list has quite such an eye or palate for the deleterious grub. We may allow him even a few flowers.
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