PRACTICAL NATURALISM

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 40, 16 August 1921, Page 6

PRACTICAL NATURALISM

The work of a great army oyjirdlovers in the United KiAgdom is constantly causing hew grbund to be broken, and careful observation is adding steadily to the knowledge of bird-rinigration, which is one of the naturalist's most attractive fields. In an old country, with great population and wealth, there is a leisured class the better members of which have it in their power to serve mankind by devoting time, effort, and thought to unpaid occupations of general importance; consequently the United Kingdom has advantages not to be found in a sparsely populated and work-a-day country like New Zealand. Nevertheless, pro rata, this community might be expected to contribute something to the cause of Nature study, and those who take the lead therein are entitled to all honour. In the course of a stimulating address to members of the Tararua Tramping Club, on "The Tararua Track from a Naturalist's Point of View," Mr. J. G. Myers, F.E.S., appealed for more bird-watchers, at % the same time paying a tribute to the work of Messrs. GuthrieSmith and Johanues Andersen> The unfortunate thing'is that, while New Zealand is growing up to a wider consciousness of the need of studying, its indigenous avi-fauna, the living representatives thereof are becoming fewer and less accessible. Deforestation is their enemy, ours too. But we realise it so tardily. ■