THE DARTFORD WARBLER
HOW TO SAVE OUR RARE BIRDS
The most interesting chapter in John Burroughs' Fresh Fields
contains an account of an anxious hurried search after a
nightingale in song, at a time of the year when that "creature of
ebullient heart" somewhat suddenly drops into silence. A few days
were spent by the author in rushing about the country in Surrey
and Hampshire, with the result that once or twice a few musical
throbs of sound, a trill, a short detached phrase, were heard--just
enough to convince the eager listener that here was a vocalist
beautiful beyond all others, and that he had missed its music by
appearing a very few days too late on the scene.
During the last seven or eight years I have read this chapter
several times with undiminished interest, and with a feeling of
keen sympathy for the writer in his disappointment; for it is the
case that I, too, all this time, have been in chase of a
small British songster--a rare elusive bird, hard to find at any
time as it is to hear a nightingale pour out its full song in the
last week in June. In these years I have, at every opportunity, in
spring, summer, and autumn, sought for the bird in the southern
half of England, chiefly in the south and south-western counties.
In the Midlands, and in Devonshire, where he was formerly well
known, but where the authorities say he is now extinct, I failed
to find him. I found him altogether in four counties, in a few
widely-separated localities; in every case in such small numbers
that I was reluctantly forced to give up a long-cherished hope
that this species might yet recover from the low state, with
regard to numbers, in which it fingers, and be permanently
preserved as a member of the British avifauna.
It would indeed hardly be reasonable to entertain such a hope, when we
consider that the furze wren, or Dartford warbler, as it is named in
books, is a small, frail, insectivorous species, a feeble flyer that
must brave the winters at home; that down to within thirty years ago
it was fairly common, though local, in the south of England, and
ranged as far north as the borders of Yorkshire, and that in this
period it has fallen to its present state, when but a few pairs and
small colonies, wide apart, exist in isolated patches of furze in four
or five, possibly six, counties.
There can be no doubt that the decline of this species, which, on
account of its furze-loving habits, must always be restricted to
limited areas, is directly attributable to the greed of private
collectors, who are all bound to have specimens--as many as they can
get--both of the bird and its nest and eggs. Its strictly local
distribution made its destruction a comparatively easy task. In 1873
Gould wrote in his large work on British Birds: "All the commons south
of London, from Blackheath and Wimbledon to the coast, were formerly
tenanted by this little bird; but the increase in the number of
collectors has, I fear, greatly thinned them in all the districts near
the metropolis; it is still, however, very abundant in many parts of
Surrey and Hampshire." It did not long continue "very abundant." Gould
was shown the bird, and supplied with specimens, by a man named
Smithers, a bird-stuffer of Churt, who was at that time collecting
Dartford warblers and their eggs for the trade and many private
persons, on the open heath and gorse-grown country that lies between
Farnham and Haslemere. Gould in the work quoted, adds: "As most
British collectors must now be supplied with the eggs of the furze
wren, I trust Mr Smithers will be more sparing in the future." So
little sparing was he, that when he died, but few birds were left for
others of his detestable trade who came after him.
Three or four years ago I got in conversation with a heath-cutter on
Milford Common, a singular and brutal-looking fellow, of the
half-Gypsy Devil's Punch-Bowl type, described so ably by Baring-Gould
in his Broom Squire. He told me that when he was a boy, about
thirty-five years ago, the furze wren was common in all that part of
the country, until Smithers' offer of a shilling for every clutch of
eggs, had set the boys from all the villages in the district hunting
for the nests. Many a shilling had he been paid for the nests he
found, but in a few years the birds became rare; and he added that he
had not now seen one for a very long time.
In Clark's Kennedy's Birds of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire we get a
glimpse of the furze wren collecting business at an earlier date and
nearer the metropolis. In 1868 he wrote:--"The only locality in the
two counties in which this species is at all numerous, is a common in
the vicinity of Sunninghill, where it is found breeding every summer,
and from whence a person in the neighbourhood obtains specimens at all
times of the year, with which to supply the London bird-stuffers."
When the district worked by Smithers, and the neighbouring commons
round Godalming, where Newman in his Letters of Rusticus says he had
seen the "tops of the furze quite alive with these birds," had been
depleted, other favourite haunts of the little doomed furze-lover were
visited, and for a time yielded a rich harvest. In a few years the
bird was practically extirpated; in the sixties and seventies it was
common, now there are many young ornithologists with us who have never
seen it (in this country at all events) in a state of nature. In some
cases even persons interested in bird life, some of them naturalists
too, did not know what was going on in their immediate neighbourhood
until after the bird was gone. I met with a case of the kind, a very
strange case indeed, in the summer of 1899, at a place near the south
coast where the bird was common after it had been destroyed in Surrey,
but does not now exist. In my search for information I paid a visit to
the octogenarian vicar of a small rustic village. He was a native of
the parish, and loved his home above all places, even as White loved
Selborne, and had been a clergyman in it for over sixty years;
moreover he was, I was told, a keen naturalist, and though not a
collector nor a writer of books, he knew every plant and every wild
animal to be found in the parish. He better than another, I imagined,
would be able to give me some authentic local information.
I found him in his study--a tall, handsome, white-haired old man, very
feeble; he rose, and supporting his steps with a long staff, led me
out into the grounds and talked about nature. But his memory, like his
strength, was failing; he seemed, indeed, but the ruin of a man,
although still of a very noble presence. What he called the vicarage
gardens, where we strolled about among the trees, was a place without
walks, all overgrown with grass and wildings; for roses and dahlias he
showed me fennel, goat's-beard, henbane, and common hound's tongue;
and when speaking of their nature he stroked their leaves and stems
caressingly. He loved these better than the gardener's blooms, and so
did I; but I wanted to hear about the vanished birds of the district,
particularly the furze wren, which had survived all the others that
were gone.
His dim eyes brightened for a moment with old pleasant memories of
days spent in observing these birds; and leading me to a spot among
the trees, from which there was a view of the open country beyond, he
pointed to a great green down, a couple of miles away, and told me
that on the other side I would come on a large patch of furze, and
that by sitting quietly there for half an hour or so I might see a
dozen furze wrens. Then he added: "A dozen, did I say? Why, I saw not
fewer than forty or fifty flitting about the bushes the very last time
I went there, and I daresay if you are patient enough you will see
quite as many."
I assured him that there were no furze wrens at the spot he had
indicated, nor anywhere in that neighbourhood, and I ventured to add
that he must be telling me of what he had witnessed a good many years
ago. "No, not so many," he returned, "and I am astonished and grieved
to hear that the birds are gone--four or five years, perhaps. No, it
was longer ago. You are right--I think it must be at least fifteen
years since I went to that spot the last time. I am not so strong as I
was, and for some years have not been able to take any long walks."
Fifteen years may seem but a short space of time to a man verging on
ninety; in the mournful story of the extermination of rare and
beautiful British birds for the cabinet it is in reality a long
period. Fifteen years ago the honey buzzard was a breeding species in
England, and had doubtless been so for thousands of years. When the
price of a "British-killed" specimen rose to L25, and of a
"British-taken" egg to two or three or four pounds, the bird quickly
ceased to exist. Probably there is not a local ornithologist in all
the land who could not say of some species that bred annually, within
the limits of his own country, that it has not been extirpated within
the last fifteen years.
In the instance just related, when the aged vicar, sorrying at the
loss of the birds, began to recall the rare pleasure it had given him
to watch them disporting themselves among the furze-bushes, something
of the illusion which had been in his mind imparted itself to mine,
for I could see what he was mentally seeing, and the fifteen years
dwindled to a very brief space of time. Like Burroughs with the
nightingale, I, too, had arrived a few days too late on the scene; the
"cursed collector" had been beforehand with me, as had indeed been the
case on so many previous occasions with regard to other species.
A short time after my interview with the aged vicar, at an inn a very
few miles from the village, I met a person who interested me in an
exceedingly unpleasant way. He was a big repulsive-looking man in a
black greasy coat--a human animal to be avoided; but I overheard him
say something about rare birds which caused me to put on a friendly
air and join in the talk. He was a Kentish man who spent most of his
time in driving about from village to village, and from farm to farm,
in the southern counties, in search of bargains, and was prepared to
buy for cash down anything he could find cheap, from an old teapot, or
a print, or copper scuttle, to a horse, or cart, or pig, or a houseful
of furniture. He also bought rare birds in the flesh, or stuffed, and
was no doubt in league with a good many honest gamekeepers in those
counties. I had heard of "travellers" sent out by the great bird
stuffers to go the rounds of all the big estates in some parts of
England, but this scoundrel appeared to be a traveller in the business
on his own account. I asked him if he had done anything lately in
Dartford warblers. He at once became confidential, and said he had
done nothing but hoped shortly to do something very good indeed. The
bird, he said, was supposed to be extinct in Kent, and on that account
specimens obtained in that county would command a high price. Now he
had but recently discovered that a few--two or three pairs--existed at
one spot, and he was anxious to finish the business he had on hand so
as to go there and secure them. In answer to further questions, he
said that the birds were in a place where they could not very well be
shot, but that made no difference; he had a simple, effective way of
getting them without a gun, and he was sure that not one would escape
him.
On my mentioning the fact that the Kent County Council had obtained an
order for an all the year round protection of this very bird, he
looked at me out of the corners of his eyes and laughed, but said
nothing. He took it as a rather good joke on my part.
There is not the slightest doubt that our wealthy private collectors
have created the class of injurious wretches to which this man
belonged.
* * * * *
To some who have glanced at a little dusty, out of shape mummy of a
bird, labelled "Dartford Warbler," in a museum, or private collection,
or under a glass shade, it may seem that I speak too warmly of the
pleasure which the sight of the small furze-lover can give us. They
have never seen it in a state of nature, and probably never will. When
I consider all these British Passeres, which, seen at their best, give
most delight to the aesthetic sense--the jay, the "British Bird of
Paradise," as I have ventured to call it, displaying his vari-coloured
feathers at a spring-time gathering; the yellow-green, long-winged
wood wren, most aerial and delicate of the woodland warblers; the
kingfisher, flashing turquoise blue as he speeds by; the elegant
fawn-coloured, black-bearded tit, clinging to the grey-green, swaying
reeds, and springing from them with a bell-like note; and the
rose-tinted narrow-shaped bottle-tit as he drifts by overhead in a
flock; the bright, lively goldfinch scattering the silvery
thistle-down on the air; the crossbill, that quaint little
many-coloured parrot of the north, feeding on a pine-cone; the grey
wagtail exhibiting his graceful motions; and the golden-crested wren,
seen suspended motionless with swiftly vibrating wings above his mate
concealed among the clustering leaves, in appearance a great green
hawk-moth, his opened and flattened crest a shining, flame-coloured
disc or shield on his head,--when I consider all these, and others, I
find that the peculiar charm of each does not exceed in degree that of
the furze wren--seen at his best. He is of the type of the
white-throat, but idealised; the familiar brown, excitable Sylvia,
pretty as he is and welcome to our hedges in April, is in appearance
but a rough study for the smaller, more delicately-fashioned and
richly-coloured Melizophilus, or furze-lover. On account of his
excessive rarity he can now be seen at his best only by those who are
able to spend many days in searching and in watching, who have the
patience to sit motionless by the hour; and at length the little
hideling, tired of concealment or overcome by curiosity, shows himself
and comes nearer and nearer, until the ruby red of the small gem-like
eye may been seen without aid to the vision. A sprite-like bird in his
slender exquisite shape and his beautiful fits of excitement;
fantastic in his motions as he flits and flies from spray to spray,
now hovering motionless in the air like the wooing gold-crest, anon
dropping on a perch, to sit jerking his long tail, his crest raised,
his throat swollen, chiding when he sings and singing when he chides,
like a refined and lesser sedge warbler in a frenzy, his slate-black
and chestnut-red plumage showing rich and dark against the pure
luminous yellow of the massed furze blossoms. It is a sight of
fairy-like bird life and of flower which cannot soon be forgotten. And
I do not think that any man who has in him any love of nature and of
the beautiful can see such a thing, and exist with its image in his
mind, and not regard with an extreme bitterness of hatred those among
us whose particular craze it is to "collect" such creatures, thereby
depriving us and our posterity of the delight the sight of them
affords.
Of many curious experiences I have met in my quest of the rare little
bird, or of information concerning it, I have related two or three: I
have one more to give--assuredly the strangest of all. I was out for a
day's ramble with the members of a Natural History Society, at a place
the name of which must not be told, and was walking in advance of the
others with a Mr A., the leading ornithologist of the county, one
whose name is honourably known to all naturalists in the kingdom. The
Dartford warbler, he said in the course of conversation, had unhappily
long been extinct in the county. Now it happened that among those just
behind us there was another local naturalist, also well known outside
his own county--Mr B., let us call him. When I separated from my
companion this gentleman came to my side, and said that he had
overheard some of our talk, and he wished me to know that Mr A. was in
error in saying that the Dartford warbler was extinct in the county.
There was one small colony of three or four pairs to be found at a
spot ten to eleven miles from where we then were; and he would be glad
to take me to the place and show me the birds. The existence of this
small remnant had been known for several years to half a dozen
persons, who had jealously kept the secret;--to their great regret
they had had to keep it from their best friend and chief supporter of
their Society, Mr A., simply because it would not be safe with him. He
was enthusiastic about the native bird life, the number of species the
county could boast, etc., and sooner or later he would incautiously
speak about the Dartford warbler, and the wealthy local collectors
would hear of it, with the result that the birds would quickly be
gathered into their cabinets.
My informant went on to say that the greatest offenders were four or
five gentlemen in the place who were zealous collectors. The county
had obtained a stringent order, with all-the-year-round protection for
its rare species. Much, too, had been done by individuals to create a
public opinion favourable to bird protection, and among the educated
classes there was now a strong feeling against the destruction by
private collectors of all that was best worth preserving in the local
wild bird life. But so far not the slightest effect had been produced
in the principal offenders. They would have the rare birds, both the
resident species and the occasional visitants, and paid liberally for
all specimens. Bird-stuffers, gamekeepers--their own and their
neighbours'--fowlers, and all those who had a keen eye for a feathered
rarity, were in their pay; and so the destruction went merrily on. The
worst of it was that the authors of the evil, who were not only
law-breakers themselves, but were paying others to break the law,
could not be touched; no one could prosecute nor openly denounce them
because of their important social position in the county.
There was nothing new to me in all this: it was an old familiar story;
I have given it fully, simply because it is an accurate statement of
what is being done all over the country. There is not a county in the
kingdom where you may not hear of important members of the community
who are collectors of birds and their eggs, and law-breakers, both
directly and indirectly, every day of their lives. They all take, and
pay for, every rare visitant that comes in their way, and also require
an unlimited supply of the rarer resident species for the purpose of
exchange with other private collectors in distant counties. In this
way our finest species are gradually being extirpated. Within the last
few years we have seen the disappearance (as breeding species) of the
ruff and reeve, marsh harrier, and honey buzzard; and the species now
on the verge of extinction, which will soon follow these and others
that have gone before, if indeed some of them have not already gone,
are the sea-eagle, osprey, kite, hen harrier, Montagu's harrier, stone
curlew, Kentish plover, dotterel, red-necked phalarope, roseate tern,
bearded tit, grey-lag goose, and great skua. These in their turn will
be followed by the chough, hobby, great black-backed gull, furze wren,
crested tit, and others. These are the species which, as things are
going, will absolutely and for ever disappear, as residents and
breeders, from off the British Islands. Meanwhile other species that,
although comparatively rare, are less local in their distribution, are
being annually exterminated in some parts of the country: it is poor
comfort to the bird lover in southern England to know that many
species that formerly gave life and interest to the scene, and have
lately been done to death there, may still be met with in the wilder
districts of Scotland, or in some forest in the north of Wales.
Finally, we have among our annual visitants a considerable number of
species which have either bred in these islands in past times (some
quite recently), or else would probably remain to breed if they were
not immediately killed on arrival--bittern, little bittern, night
heron, spoonbill, stork, avocet, black tern, hoopoe, golden oriole,
and many others of less well-known names.
This is the case, and that it is a bad one, and well-nigh hopeless, no
man will deny. Nevertheless, I believe that it may be possible to find
a remedy.
That "destruction of beautiful things," about which Ruskin wrote
despairingly, "of late ending in perfect blackness of catastrophe, and
ruin of all grace and glory in the land," has fallen, and continues to
fall, most heavily on the beautiful bird life of our country. But the
destruction has not been unremarked and unlamented, and the existence
of a strong and widespread public feeling in favour of the
preservation of our wild birds has of late shown itself in many ways,
especially in the unopposed legislation on the subject during the last
few years, and the willingness that Government and Parliament have
shown recently to consider a new Act. There is no doubt that this
feeling will grow until it becomes too strong even for the selfish
Philistines, who are blind to all grace and glory in nature, and
incapable of seeing anything in a rare and beautiful bird but an
object to be collected. Those who in the years to come will inherit
the numberless useless private collections now being formed will make
haste to rid themselves of such unhappy legacies, by thrusting them
upon local museums, or by destroying them outright in their anxiety to
have it forgotten that one of their name had a part in the detestable
business of depriving the land of these wonderful and beautiful forms
of life--a life which future generations would have cherished as a
dear and sacred possession.
But we cannot afford to wait: we have been made too poor in species
already, and are losing something further every year; we want a remedy
now.
So far two suggestions have been made. One is an alteration in the
existing law, which will allow the infliction of far heavier fines on
offenders. All those who are acquainted with collectors and their ways
will at once agree that increased penalties will not meet the case;
that the only effect of such an alteration in the law would be to make
collectors and the persons employed by them more careful than they
have yet found it necessary to be. The other suggestion vaguely put
forth is that something of the nature of a private inquiry agency
should be established to find out the offenders, and that they should
be pilloried in the columns of some widely-circulating journal, a
method which has been tried with some success in the cases of other
classes of obnoxious persons. This suggestion may be dismissed at once
as of no value; not one offence in a hundred would be discovered by
such means, and the greatest sinners, who are not infrequently the
most intelligent men, would escape scot free.
Perhaps I should have said that three suggestions have been made, for
there is yet another, put forward by Mr Richard Kearton in one of his
late books. He is thoroughly convinced, he tells us, that the County
Council orders are perfectly useless in the case of any and every rare
bird which collectors covet; and on that point we are all agreed; he
then says: "We should select a dozen species admitted by a committee
of practical ornithologists to be in danger, and afford them personal
protection during the whole of the breeding season by placing reliable
watchers, night and day, upon the nesting-ground."
Watchers provided and paid by individuals and associations have been
in existence these many years, and this is undoubtedly the best plan
in the case of all species which breed in colonies. These are mostly
sea-birds--gulls, terns, cormorants, guillemots, razor-bills, etc. Our
rare birds are distributed over the country, and in the case of some,
if a hundred pairs of a species exist in the British Islands, a
hundred or two hundred watchers would have to be engaged. But who that
has any knowledge of what goes on in the collecting world does not
know that the guarded birds would be the first to vanish? I have seen
such things--pairs of rare birds breeding in private grounds, where
the keepers had strict orders to watch over them, and no stranger
could enter without being challenged, and in a little while they have
mysteriously disappeared. The "watcher" is good enough on the exposed
sea-coast or island where an eye is kept on his doings, and where the
large number of birds in his charge enables him to do a little
profitable stealing and still keep up an appearance of honesty. I have
visited most of the watched colonies, and therefore know. The
watchers, who were paid a pound a week for guarding the nests, were
not chary of their hints, and I have also been told in very plain
words that I could have any eggs I wanted.
It is hardly necessary to say here that the proposed alteration in the
law to make it protective of all species will, so far as the private
collector is concerned, leave matters just as they are.
There is really only one way out of the difficulty,--one remedy for an
evil which grows in spite of penalties and of public opinion,--namely,
a law to forbid the making of collections of British birds by private
persons. If all that has been done in and out of Parliament since 1868
to preserve our wild birds--not merely the common abundant species,
which are not regarded by collectors, but all species--is not to be so
much labour wasted, such a law must sooner or later be made. It will
not be denied by any private collector, whether he clings to the old
delusion that it is to the advantage of science that he should have
cabinets full of "British killed" specimens or not,--it will not be
denied that the drain on our wild bird life caused by collecting is a
constantly increasing one, and that no fresh legislation on the lines
of previous bird protection Acts can arrest or diminish that drain.
Thirty years ago, when the first Act was passed, which prohibited the
slaughter of sea-birds during the breeding season, the drain on the
bird life which is valued by collectors was far less than it is now;
not only because there are a dozen or more collectors now where there
was one in the sixties, but also because the business of collecting
has been developed and brought to perfection. All the localities in
which the rare resident species may be looked for are known, while the
collectors all over the country are in touch with each other, and have
a system of exchanges as complete as it is deadly to the birds. Then
there is the money element; bird-collecting is not only the hobby of
hundreds of persons of moderate means and of moderate wealth, but,
like horse-racing, yachting, and other expensive forms of sport, it
now attracts the very wealthy, and is even a pastime of millionaires.
All this is a familiar fact, and clearly shows that without such a law
as I have suggested it has now become impossible to save the best of
our wild bird life.
The collectors will doubtless cry out that such a law would be a
monstrous injustice, and an unwarrantable interference with the
liberty of the subject; that there is really no more harm in
collecting birds and their eggs than in collecting old prints,
Guatemalan postage stamps, samplers, and first editions of minor
poets; that to compel them to give up their treasures, which have cost
them infinite pains and thousands of pounds to get together, and to
abandon the pursuit in which their happiness is placed, would be worse
than confiscation and downright tyranny; that the private collectors
cannot properly be described as law-breakers and injurious persons,
since they count among their numbers hundreds of country gentlemen of
position, professional men (including clergymen), noblemen,
magistrates, and justices of the peace, and distinguished
naturalists--all honourable men.
To put in one word on this last very delicate point: Where, in
collecting, does the honourable man draw the line, and sternly refuse
to enrich his cabinet with a long-wished-for specimen of a rare
British species?--a specimen "in the flesh," not only "British killed"
but obtained in the county; not killed wantonly, nor stolen by some
poaching rascal, but unhappily shot in mistake for something else by
an ignorant young under-keeper, who, in fear of a wigging, took it
secretly to a friend at a distance and gave it to him to get rid of.
The story of the unfortunate killing of the rare bird varies in each
case when it has to be told to one whose standard of morality is very
high even with regard to his hobby. My experience is, that where there
are collectors who are men of means, there you find their parasites,
who know how to treat them, and who feed on their enthusiasms.
In my rambles about the country during the last few years, I have
neglected no opportunity of conversing with landowners and large
tenants on this subject, and, with the exception of one man, all those
I have spoken to agreed that owners generally--not nine in every ten,
as I had put it, but ninety-nine in every hundred--would gladly
welcome a law to put down the collecting of British birds by private
persons. The one man who disagreed is the owner of an immense estate,
and he was the bitterest of all in denouncing the scoundrels who came
to steal his birds; and if a law could be made to put an end to such
practices he would, he said, be delighted; but he drew the line at
forbidding a man to collect birds on his own property. "No, no!" he
concluded; "that would be an interference with the liberty of the
subject." Then it came out that he was a collector himself, and was
very proud of the rare species in his collection! If I had known that
before, I should not have gone out of my way to discuss the subject
with him.
Clearly, then, there is a very strong case for legislation. How strong
the case is I am not yet able to show, my means not having enabled me
to carry out an intention of discussing the subject with a much
greater number of landowners, and of addressing a circular later
stating the case to all the landlords and shooting-tenants in the
country. That remains to be done; in the meantime this chapter will
serve to bring the subject to the attention of a considerable number
of persons who would prefer that our birds should be preserved rather
than that they should be exterminated in the interests of a certain
number of individuals whose amusement it is to collect such objects.
That a law on the lines suggested will be made sooner or later is my
belief: that it may come soon is my hope and prayer, lest we have to
say of the Dartford warbler, and of twenty other species named in this
chapter, as we have had to say of so many others that have gone
The beautiful is vanished and returns not.
* * * * *
Note.--The foregoing chapter, albeit written so many years ago,
is still "up-to-date"--still represents without a shadow of a
shade of difference the state of the case. The extermination of
our rare birds and "occasional visitors" still goes merrily on
in defiance of the law, and the worst offenders are still
received with open arms by the British Ornithologists' Union.
Indeed, that Society, from the point of view of many of its
members would have no raison d'etre if membership were denied
to the private collector of rare "British killed" birds and
their eggs and to the "scientific" ornithologist whose mission
is to add several new species annually to the British list.
They still dine together and exhibit their specimens to one
another. On the last occasion of my attending one of these
meetings a member exhibited a small bird "in the flesh"--a bird
from some far country which had been shot somewhere on the east
coast and was so knocked to pieces by the shot that the
ornithologists had great difficulty in identifying it. Although
a collector himself he was anxious to dispose of the specimen,
but none of his brother collectors would give him a five-pound
note for it owing to its condition. It was handed round and
examined and discussed by all the authorities present. I stood
apart, looking at a group of ornithologists bending over the
shattered specimen, all talking and arguing, when another
member who by chance was not a collector moved to my side and
whispered in my ear: "Just like a lot of little children!"
Is it not time to say to these "little children" that they must
find a new toy--a fresh amusement to fill their vacant hours:
that birds--living flying birds--are a part of nature, of this
visible world in this island, the dwelling-place of some
forty-five or fifty millions of souls; that these millions have
a right in the country's wild life too--surely a better one
than that of a few hundreds of gentlemen of leisure who have
money to hire gamekeepers, bird-stuffers, wild-fowlers, and
many others, to break the law for them, and to take the
punishment when any is given?
By saying it will be understood that I mean enacting a law to
prohibit private collection. It is surely time. But what
prospects are there of such an Act being passed by a Parliament
which has spent six years playing with a Plumage Prohibition
Bill!
Well, just now we have a committee appointed by the Government
to consider the whole question of bird protection with a view
to fresh legislation. Will this committee recommend the one and
only way to put a stop to the continuous destruction of our
rarer birds? I don't think so. For such a law would be aimed at
those of their own class, at their friends, at themselves.
At the end of the chapter I gave an account of an interview I
had with a great landowner who happened to be a collector, and
who cried out that such a law as the one I suggested would be
an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject.
Another interview years later was with one who is not only a
landowner, the head of a branch of a great family in the land,
but a great power in the political world as well, and, finally,
(not wonderful to relate) a great "protector of birds." "No,"
he said warmly, "I will not for a moment encourage you to hope
that any good will come of such a proposal. If any person
should bring in such a measure I would do everything in my
power to defeat it. I am a collector myself and I am perfectly
sure that such an interference with the liberty of the subject
would not be tolerated."
That, I take it, is or will be the attitude of the committee
now considering the subject of our wild bird life and its
better protection.