COUNTRY LIFE
Wildfowl Inquiry It is a fairly long time since I was able to give any news of the International Committee for Bird Preservation. Perhaps I hardly need to say that this war has hit it tragically hard. The delicate business of drawing up plans for an International Conven- tion for the Protection of the Birds of Europe had been going on for some years, and preliminary suggestions were being laid before the various governments concerned ; but now, the secretary tells me, every bit of that work has been lost. In spite of it, the British section of the committee, with the orphan Polish section adopted, carries on, and. at last its report on the International Wildfowl Inquiry appears : Vol. I: Wild Geese and Wild Duck (Cambridge University Press, 8s. 6d.). During the past century conditions governing the habits and distribution of wild fowl in various parts of the world, especially Europe and North America, have been revolutionised. Destruction has been greatly increased by the internal-combustion engine, the steam-engine, and the breech-loading gun, for example, and these three factors especially revolutionised distribution. Volume I of the report examines all the evidence, including migration, decoys, ringing of duck, the distribution of sea-shore plants, punt-gunning, close-time and so on, in a series of expert chapters. British decoys are, by the way, dying out, and the punt-gunner, rather surprisingly, is acquitted of the usual charge of mass-murder. Miss Phyllis Barclay-Smith appeals finally fora close-season in Europe—perhaps with little idea of how much we all agree with her.
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