The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-02-03 00:00:00

BRITISH BIRDS.

The following interesting letter, which has been sent
to The Times for publication, will interest many
readers, who may not have an opportunity of perusing
it in that journal :
You know, nave no doubt, as well as myself, how wide
spread is the feeling in favour of some legislative protection
being afforded to our native land-birds, such as was so
happily gained by our worthy member, Mr. Sykes, for their
kindred of the sea.
An endeavour would have been made in the last Session of
Parliament to obtain each a measure by the Royal Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and a draught of
an Act for the purpose was duly drawn up ; but an in-
fluential member of the British Association wrote to me to
ask to use any influence I might possess with the Society to
get them to waive it for the time, as a matter of policy, in
view of the various other measures of urgent political im-
portance then before the House, and in order, also, that the
Society and the Association might afterwards work together
for the common object which the former and the committee
1 of the latter had before them.
Of course I slid so, and the result was that the intended
action was suspended, though, I need scarcely say, by no
means given up.
I have reason to believe that the first favourable opportu-
nity of gaining further protection for others of our British
birds will accordingly be embraced, and I have to ask of you
the favour to allow me to say a few words in behalf of
those who cannot otherwise complain of the wanton and
commonly useless destruction they are so greviously exposed
to.
I feel persuaded that if those persons who now so hastily
cry out for the destruction of any and every of our native
birds at the first injury they do them, or are supposed to do
them, would only exercise a little more patience in observ-
ing their ways and habits, they would not be so ready to
condemn them for a few faults, hut would find that such
are often exceptional cases, and do not by any means form
a universal rule lobe registered for ever after against them.
So many of your own readers, too, evidently take an in
terest in the habits of our native lords, that I hope you may
be able to spare a small space for a few facts illustrative of
what I have said above. Regular as are the instincts of
birds, " Voriton Cl ,nutabile" is their motto at times.
Our quaint little church, shortly, I hope, to he thoroughly
restored, is tenanted by a swarm of sparrows who have
" found them a loose" under its old tiles and eaves, joint
tenants with the bats who domicile there during the day
for their errantry at night.
• One of our kitchen gardens is not many yards from the
churchyard, and this year solve rows of peas planted in it
were " dished "by the sparrows instead of by on. so they
were once some half-dozen years before, but never once to
speak of in the previous or intervening years. Yet themwas
no apparent reason whatever why the peas should not have
been "shelled " one year as well as soother; they were of
the same kinds and in the same place, and the sparrows the
same and in the same place. Elsewhere, I fear, they would
have been shot for their first depredation, but I sup lose they
were grateful for their immunity, and left the peas of the
garden in peace for the following years.
Just in the same way, some years, the blackbirds and
thrushes attack our strawberries, currants, rasberries, ste.,
as if determined that no amount of protection should keep
them off. Do what we will, they sometimes baffle us, and
make their way through every loophole, even the most
narrow and unlikely. I think, as a rule, it will he found to
be the case that in hot summers, and the more so the longer
the continuance of dry weather, the birds are driven to plek-
, lag and stealing to a degreerthey would not otherwise be
guilty of, and that solely in consequence of their natural
. sources of supply being closed up by the drought, the earth
, being as hard as in a severe frost, so that neither can they
, dig and delve as usual, nor can the "pley they seck " make
its way to the surface to famish them with maintenance.
In frequent other years they are nothing near so trouble.

SOME.
in like manner the rooks in some years are most audacious
depredators, and in others keep aloof from gardens and the
neighbourhooii of houses. This I heard from my friend,
the Rev. Richard P. Alington, rector of Swinhope, Lincoln-
shire, the best observer of birds I have ever known, that
about three years ago they attacked his potatoes, and he had
great difficulty in securing any of the crop. That was the
only year they ever attempted to molest them, though his
garden is surrounded by a rookery of his brother's, the squire
of the parish, and two of the trees are almost in it. I think
I have heard hint tells precisely similar tale of the wood.
pigeons, which build all about him.
Rooks are certainly most puzzling birds. There are two
rookeries near here, one at Waiter Priory, Lord Muncaster's,
about a mile hence, and the other at Londeshorough-park,
Lord Lorideshortagh's, about two miles elf, "as the crow
flies," or rather two rookeries at each place, on either side
of the separate parks. One freak of the birds, which I
can never explain, is that they invariahly in the winter
roost in one of the two rookeries— the farther one from here
in each case—not a single bird in the nearer use, though
there each spring and assailer, where they have been bred
and born, they roosuthe same as afterwards in the other one.
But the most carious thing which is what I was about to
relate, and to me it is utterly unaccountable, is that inva-
riably the Lontiesborough rooks fly over here, anti to be.
, pond here morning after molting, and us Invariably return
I back to ;heir own resting place at night, and vier erect.
The Waiter rooks go over to there and beyond there to feed
and forage till the approaching dark tells them it is time to
go home again. Morning after morning, and evening after
evening, a have watched them thus going and returning "an
regolar as clockwork," and much more so than trent of our
country clocks. One evening not long since I now the two
flocks meet overhead, on ther cross purposes, the nipper ones
from Lontlesbortrugh saluting these below them with a loud
cawing when they crossed them oaths road on their way to
roost,
If any of your readers can explain this interchange of
these birds* feeding grounds for the day, taking a flight of
some miles In each case, for no apparent or imaginable
reason, instead of spreading out over the rountly in their
own respective neighliourhtrods, ills more than I can do.
This year, again, not one single marten has built under
the eaves either of this house or the church close at hand.
They forsook it, as I mentioned on a fornier occasion, the
year before last, anti have never yet come hack, through I
have no doubt they will another season, stroller or later. In
previous years -that is to Say. till the last two or three--
the pa.4,-5 of the south side of the church and the noilliona
of the d-ccritatod east window used to be lined with then.,
aa also the eaves at this rectory-house, the south-west and
east sides of which mutes tirJ most protection under the
windows None ever built on the notttl, cid° of the church
or Morse, but yet this year one house in the village, which,
with one or two single exceptiqps, was the only one In the
v'illatte which had any nests, had two or three on the north
side, the others being on the west—certainly the eaves pre-
sented an especial "coigne of vantage." . .
One more thing which I cannot account for, and I have
done. Jackdaws build with the rooks at Londesborough in
pleuty, and some. I think, at Warder too, but while hi other
plact:s I have teen these birds constantly with the rooks ta
their haunts st a dictance from their home, it is here ye"
rarely indeed that i tee or hear a ja,ckdaw among the rook.
incur fields.
Heartily hoping that our native birda may have some
• legislative protection given to them in the approachingsSes-
I sion of Parliament, of which they are sorely in need,--i am,
F. 0. MORktb.
; Z'vmburnholme Rectory, Ils3•ton, Yorkshire, Jam