PROTECTING BIRDS IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 29 December 1876, Page 7

PROTECTING BIRDS IN FRANCE.

The schoolmasters of France have had a uew duty assigned them, viz., to teach the children to protect the birds. M. Waddington, the Minister of Public Instruction, has just addressed a letter to the Prefects of Departments in France, on the subject of the preservation of insect-pating birds. He calls attention to the alarming increase in the ravages committed by insects of late years, and to the fact that this may be chiefly ascribed to the wholesale slaughter of the birds which prey upon them. The Ministers request each Prefect to call j the attention of every schoolmaster iv his department to the subject, • and to instruct them to teach the boys under their care how to dis- I tinguish between insects which are useful in agricultural districts, and ' to encourage them to destroy the one class, and carefully protect the other. The evil effect of the destruction of birds, either by trapping thenv'or by taking their nests, is to be clearly pointed out to all the chjjpren, and they are to be reminded that under an existing law, they or their parents are liable to considerable pecuniary fines if detected in euch offences. M. Waddiugton also suggests that when occasion offers, the parents themselves might bo reminded of the ulterior loss to which they arc subjected by permitting such destruction, and ho desires tho encouragement by schoolmasters of societies for the protection of useful animals among their pupils, euch as hare already been established iv some parts of Frauce, with the best possible results. By this official communication, tho claims of small birds to protection will at once be brought home to each individual schoolcluld in France ; and though " boys will be boys " there, as elsewhere, it may be hoped that such an appeal to their good sense, or their fear of punishment, will do much to terminate a system of destruction which, is as often due to mere ignorance or thoughtlessness, as to their innate love of mischief. — * Rural ftew Yorker/