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| Lapwing - 'distressing decrease' in 1920s |
Extract from At Home With Wild Nature (1922) by Surrey bird enthusiast Richard Kearton:
I have been an observer of bird life all my days, but never remember a time when members of the avian world were so purposely persecuted as the present.
It is no exaggeration to say that quite 90 per cent of the nests, great and small, built in places accessible to the general public are wantonly destroyed.
The bird life of any country has its economic as well as its aesthetic side.
Once upon a time, the human inhabitants of a certain corner of the earth decided to exterminate all fowls of the air within their domain, but soon discovered that, although the birds were quite able to live without man, man could not exist without the assistance of the insect-destroying members of the feathered tribe.
I spent June of 1922 on the Westmorland Fells and shall never forget the sickening sights I saw of sheep being eaten alive by maggots.
This loathsome scourge has greatly increased during recent years, and it needs no great stretch of imagination to connect its ravages with the distressing decrease of Lapwings, Skylarks, Wheatears and other moorland birds.
I wish some epicure would try a boiled Rook's egg for breakfast and proclaim from the house-tops of Belgravia its superiority over that of the plover or Lapwing.
It would be a great boon to the latter bird, which is being slowly but surely exterminated to the detriment of the farmer in particular, and the public in general.
To the too ardent egg-collector, and especially the clutch enthusiast, whose appetite is insatiable, I would say: "For Heaven's sake have mercy."
All that can be known, or is worth knowing, in regard to variation in the coloration and markings of British birds' eggs has already been discovered, and there is but little room in that direction for originality.
Try old china or worm-eaten furniture and give the poor birds a chance.
In all conscience they need it, and there are still some people about who delight in their sweet songs and charming ways.
Whether it is due to the latent savagery released by the influences of the Great War or some other cause I cannot tell, but children appear to be much crueller than they were a decade or two ago.
Alas, I am in a position to supply incontestable evidence upon this point from what I have witnessed with my own eyes.
If school masters and mistresses would try to humanise boys and girls who come under their care and influence, I am persuaded it would make far better and happier citizens of them than all the unmattering dates and fairy tales of history that ever bored the youthful mind.
All the Acts of Parliament passed during recent years for the protection of our wild birds are not worth the paper they are printed on, for the simple reason that with the exception of a few keepers, provided by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, there is nobody to see that they are carried out.
Children know nothing whatever about the Wild Birds Protection Acts, and collectors laugh at them.
I therefore humbly submit the following suggestions for the better protection of our feathered friends:
(1) As there is a great deal of misconception in regard to the good or harm wrought by many of our birds, instruct the Natural History Museum and the Department of Agriculture to issue an authoritative report upon the food and activities of every British bird throughout all the seasons of the year, and publish this report.
(2) Let the Education Department issue instructions to every schoolmaster and schoolmistress in the land to give a weekly lesson on birds in the spring, and warn their pupils of the harm they do by destroying birds' nests, eggs or young.
(3) Close every natural history museum in the country during April, May and June, and send all the attendants out to protect wild birds.
They would thus learn something of the lives and habits of the specimens they have under their care in glass cases during the remainder of the year, and, incidentally, enjoy a good long holiday.
Half a dozen or so of the youngest and most athletic men might be told to act as detectives and dog the footsteps of certain insatiable collectors.
No man who deliberately makes a practice of stealing public property year by year, and knows he is breaking the law by so doing, could find reasonable fault with a repressive measure of this kind.
Unless something is done, and done quickly and effectively, more of our rare birds will have to be deleted from the list of British breeders, and others will cease to render the useful service they have given to agriculture for uncounted ages.
Richard Kearton
Ashdene,
Caterham Valley
Surrey
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