Sir,—Travellers from all parts of the world tell us that one of the things that strike then when they land upon our shores in early summer is the variety of our wild bird life, and the abundance of those “wood notes wild” that have inspired so much of the best of our English song.  They do not remember that that we have entirely lost 13 or 14 varieties from the list of English birds within historic memory, some within the memory of this generation.  Nor that from our wild bird chorus have vanished the clang of the crane and the deep bass of the bittern’s boom.

But these same visitors to England are often struck with the comparative rarity of birds of bright plumage in our woods and gardens and by our streams.  They see plenty of jays’ wings in ladies hats, and here and there a green woodpecker and a kingfisher under a glass case upon some stairway landing; they, perhaps, ask to be taken a country walk that they may watch these birds at their work.  It is ten chances to one that they will walk all day in some parts of England that used to be haunted by these bright presences and see none.  The fact is that the same hand that has robbed our shores of the great auk, our plains of the bustard, our moors of the hen and marsh harrier, and our marshes of the “ruff and reeve” have been cruelly busy against jay and kingfisher and woodpecker.  The birdstuffer is robbing England of its winged jewelry; the bird-fancier is stealing our singing friends from hedgerow and from field.

It is not only from the artist’s side that one complains of this destruction of beautiful bird-life.  It is from the ethical side also.  Those of us who feel that it is a duty to the nation to keep as much of English life that can be kept in country air, and within reach of country sight and sound, feel that any diminution of the joy of the countryside and the interest of a country walk is a danger to our body politic, for it affords another reason to bid men forsake a duller countryside and swarm into the towns.

Nor can one forget in this time of depression of agriculture that the farmer has foes against whom we are helpless, but the birds of the air are all-powerful.  What is the reason of the late plague of voles in Scotland, of rats in Shropshire, of rats and mice in Lincolnshire, but that, in in their ignorance of the habits and feeding of owl and kestrel, a shortsighted war of extermination at the and of the gamekeeper has been going on against the farmer’s truest friends.

Again, who knows how much of the blight in our orchards, of oakleaf destruction in our woods, has been the direct result of the shooting off of the caterpillar-devourers.  Who can tell how much of the grouse disease upon our moors has been in part the result of allowing feeble birds to live and perpetuate their race that would else naturally have fallen a prey to the hawk?  We have destroyed a beneficent balance of nature, and where is the remedy?

It is possible that it may be found in the Wild Birds’ Protection Amendment Act, a copy of which with a letter from the Secretary of State, has just been issued to the County Councils…. It is sincerely to be hoped that county councils will consider the matter, and, advised by experts, will, if possible, take concerted action with adjacent counties, not only for the preservation of the rarer birds, but with the hope of giving some of scarcer visitants also a chance of building and nesting in our island.

The interests of agriculture, harbour sanitation, sea-coast fisheries, forest and garden culture, as well as the joy and charm of our native land, seem to require of our county councils that they shall give the Wild Birds’ Protection Amendment Act their most careful attention.

(Times, 28 November 1894, p. 14)

Hits: 2118

We are all agreed that England, with its bird-life undiminished, and its flowers un-uprooted, may be Merry England still, but we have not recognised that it will be thoughtful England also…. (p. 210)

How are we to keep this precious heritage of bird’s song and flower’s beauty for the generations yet unborn?  It is a hard task.  Thirty-two varieties of birds are, we are told, in a fair way to become extinct in the British Isles….  The King Fern, or royal fern, has ceased to exist in a valley that thirty years ago was full of it, and pari passu the flowers that dare to show their heads when the tourists flood the Lake district are disappearing…. (p. 210)

And yet from time to time we are horribly shocked to find such ghastly doings at rabbit courses, as Col. Coulson exposed by the banks of coaly Tyne among the men of Northumberland last year.  We are troubled by the barbarity that sometimes attends the royal stag hunt, and we are perplexed by the want of humanity which, it is to be feared, allows hecatombs of victims to be tortured in the name of humanity and scientific desire to alleviate pain…. (p. 211)

Where shall we begin? with English girls and boys; nay with English infants, say I.  Let us do what we can in our schools – National, Board, Voluntary – to teach and preach the elementary duty of kindness.  Let prizes be given for essays from year to year on this subject to the scholars.  Let the old May festivals be revived throughout the land, and the May Queen publish her edict against cruelty to animals each year upon her coronation day.  Let the reading books used in our schools be chosen because some of the chapters deal with this subject.  But most of all let us call out the powers of “the eye that cannot choose but see,” and stimulate the habits of observation of the children in the direction of Natural History. (p. 211)

Why not encourage the scholars to know the flowers of the neighbourhood, their habitat, their time of coming and going, their nature, their mode of propagation?  Why not give some little prize to the scholar who first notes the arrival of this or that migrant…. (p. 211)

Is it asking too much of County Councils to help us to have little patches of experimental gardening near our schools, and a drawing class wherein children may be encouraged to draw accurately the plant and animal life of their districts? (p. 211)

In this way the gentle life of our scholars may be educated, for the observer of natural things will love as he or she learns to observe.  In this way the rabbit-courses will cease to be.  Will the Selborne Society take up this work?  It is not enough that it cries down righteously the wearing of egret plumes in ladies’ bonnets – we want it to cry up the white flower of a blameless gentle life for the growing village boy and girl throughout the land. (pp. 211-212)

(Nature Notes, 1892, November, vol. III, no. 35, pp. 210-212)

Hits: 2136

Sir,—There are two prime needs if this war is to end in such a manner as that a permanent peace may be secured to Europe—one, munitions; two, food for the workers.  The submarine menace is a very real one, and we ought to make use of every available means of home food production, lose no time, waste no precious days and weeks in paper schemes, allotment suggestions, and Departmental promises of help.  That land at this crisis should be allowed to go out of cultivation is a crime.  Not a single rood of land capable of growing potatoes or grain and root crops should be unused.  Increase, if possible, should be the order of the day.  Difficulties are great.  Shortage of labour is acknowledged, but I still believe that if the patriotic feeling that pervades agricultural districts in France could breathe a little of its life into our own good Cumbrian farmer folk, and if all the farmers in every parish came together to consider the national disaster they can save us from if they will, means would be devised to obtain not only all the labour they need but sufficient labour to get on with the ploughing and sowing.  If it were not for the help that neighbour farms give at “clipping” time our fellside flocks would each year have to go unshorn.  Why not institute “boon plowings” in every district.  Why not ask everyone who can to come to the land at such a critical time and give without wage what help he or she can.  The matter of food shortage emboldens me to urge this.

(Carlisle Journal, 22 December 1916, p. 8)

Hits: 2117

Still half in dream, upon the stair I hear
A patter coming nearer and more near,
And then upon my chamber door
A gentle tapping;
And next a scuffle on the passage floor,
And after that a cry, half sneeze, half yapping;
And then I know that ‘Oscar’ lies to watch
Until the noiseless maid will lift the latch.
And like a spring
That gains its power by being tightly stayed
The impatient thing
Into the room
Its whole glad heart doth fling;
And ere the gloom
Melts into light and window-blinds are rolled,
I hear a leap upon the bed,
I feel a creeping towards me—a soft head,
And on my face
By way of an embrace
A tender nose and cold—
And on my hand like sun-warmed rose-leaves flung,
The least faint flicker of the gentlest tongue,
And so my dog and I have met and sworn
Fresh love and fealty for another morn.

(Poems at Home and Abroad, pp. 91-2)

Hits: 2015