COUNTRY LIFE

The International Committee for Bird Preservation Fifteen years ago a group of influential bird-lovers, including Earl Buxton, Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Lord Rothschild, Dr. Gilbert Pearson and representatives from several countries in Europe, met in London to discuss what even then was an acute question : the welfare and protection of migratory birds. This committee realised that migrants are inter- national, and that in the question of their welfare we are all inter-dependent. But for more than ten years this com- mittee did nothing except, in its own words, " the passing of hopeful resolutions." Then came the International Ornithological Congress of 1934, held in Oxford, and the realisa- tion that, in order to be effective at all, this work of bird- preservation must be really active and really international. This led to the complete reorganisation of the National Sections and, in 1935, of the British section in particular. That section now has its headquarters at the Zoological Society, with an impressive list of constituent societies behind it : the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Zoological Society, the British Ornithologists Union, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The National Trust, the Society for the Promotion of National Preserves, and the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire. Its work and aims, which I explain in the next paragraph, are of considerable importance to all bird-lovers.

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Its Purpose

During the present century small birds have, I suppose, been given more protection in civilised countries than perhaps at any time in history ; whereas wild-fowl, in particular duck and geese, have suffered very greatly from the spread of civilisation and the development of more efficient means of destruction. The pursuit of duck in cars and in launches and their destruction by the barbaric punt-gun are some of the obvious means by which wild-fowl are threatened. But they are threatened by less obvious but equally insidious dangers : the draining of land ; the silting up of old harbours, the discharge of waste oil at sea ; the length of the Open Season in Europe ; the diminution of Zostera Marina, on which duck feed ; the collecting of eggs in Russia for use in the cinema trade. In certain places, in Spitzbergen for instance, eider-down collectors are stated to be living on ducks' eggs and to be shooting duck and geese which, in full moult, are unable to fly. All these things will, if carried on intensely enough and long enough, mean disaster to big sections of the bird population of Europe. If that happens, all bird-lovers will be poorer. But to prevent it a strong and well-organised system of international propaganda is necessary; which means money.

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An Appeal for Funds The Committee needs- that money not only to conduct a campaign of propaganda in order to induce the various Governments of Europe to act in unison; but a general census of the status of ducks and geese in every country in Europe ; and a scheme for ringing duck on a large scale in order to trace their lines of migration to and from their breeding areas in spring and autumn. The last is of much importance ; definite knowledge of the breeding areas of such duck as pass through or winter in the British Isles would make it possible to exert influence in the matter of protection in those areas. Much else is proposed, and other birds than duck are included in this international scheme of protection. Quail, for instance. Quail are caught in hundreds of thousands and brought to England and other European countries in the middle of the breeding season. The transportation of live birds by sea is another question. Birds are brought over in abominable conditions, to suffer cruelty and death through hunger and lack of decent humane care. The committee hopes, in conjunction with other National committees, to tackle and change this order of things. Patrons of the British section are invited at an annual subscrip- tion of three guineas ; associates at an annual subscription of Jos. 6d. Subscriptions should be sent to Secretary, British Section, I.C.B.P., Clio Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, N.W. 8. Tunny into Quail

The quail is very abundant in Europe, but not in England, though it has been recorded, by which of course I mean shot, in almost every county. It is imported in great quantities, and even fifty years ago was said to come in at something like 40,000 a year to London alone. And of all bird stories the story of the origin of the quail is, I think, the craziest. I wish I could give the authority for this delicious bit of fancy :

" When there are great storms upon the coasts of Lybia Deserta, the sea casts up great tunnies upon the shore, and these breed worms for fourteen days, and grow to be as big as flies, then as locusts, which being augmented in bigness, become birds, called quails."

The bird also seems to have been destined for other purposes than as a dish for gourmets. It had, apparently, strange powers of creating illusion : " Dissolve the eyes of a quail, or of the sea-tench, in a little water in a glass vessel for seven days, then add a little oyl : put a little of this in the candle, or only anount a rag, and light among the company, and they will look upon themselves like devils on fire, so that every one will run his way."

A Lover of Fungi

I would like to add a postscript to Mr. R. A. Scott-James' article on the late Edward Garnett, who was not only a lover of literature and an authority on the passions, but also a lover of and an authority on fungi. He scorned the iron conservatism of the English countryman, who looks on all species but Agaricus campestris as suicidal. Edward Garnett knew, and was always trying to sample, some dozens of species of edible fungi, and he was never so happy as when poking about the beech and birch woods of the Surrey hills in search for a stew of boleti or a fry of some obscure and perhaps sinister-looking delicacy. He got his knowledge, or most of it, from the Russians who, with the Italians, are said to be the largest eaters of fungi in Europe. He delighted to tell, with his inimitable flair for the diabolical, of a fungus which, when eaten, turned the blood to water. It was an ideal dish with which to entertain, he felt, certain literary critics. It is curious to note, by the way, that the Italians are said to regard Agaricus campestris, our own common mushroom, as uneatable, and that the Swedes, in contradiction to the rules of certain gas- tronomists, make a sandwich of it. It was at Edward Garnett's table that I first tasted that sandwich, which is, gastronomist or no gastronomist, in every way delicious.

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The Charm of Peewits I often feel that the peewit, whether poised or gathered in its winter congregations, is the best of all English medium-sized birds. It behaves, always, with extraordinary grace and volatility, careering, diving, planing, swooping, stunting, performing its decoy trick of despair and terror with such acrobatic passion that, often, it defeats itself. There is some- thing just a fraction too expert about that performance. But it is, even so, fascinating, almost terrifying. Then peewits look charming, too, at rest : very erect and aristocratic, with their perky cockatoo cockades. But gathered in vast winter companies, they cease almost to be birds, at least individual birds. They marshal, sometimes, high up and begin to go through a prolonged series of strange manoeuvres, beautifully ordered but somehow crazy, as though they were the victims of a kind of military madness. I have seen them go up and round and over and up and round and down and up again with such beautifully drilled precision, flashing alternate black and white of wings against the blue winter sky, that it seemed uncanny They seemed to be gathering and manoeuvring for some colossal celestial parade.

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Wild Gladiolus

The intentionally sceptical tone of my note on the wild English gladiolus had its reward. Correspondents from many parts of the New Forest have written, as I hoped they would, to tell me that G. illyricus is very far from being extinct. It also seems likely to flourish, in its quiet way, for a good long time yet. The secret of its haunts is as carefully guarded in Hampshire as the secret of the rare orchids is guarded in Kent. Its own natural habit of growing almost hidden by great fronds of bracken is the best kind of protection, too.

H. E. BArEs.