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The systematic study of the economic value of birds in their relation to agriculture has been carried out in Hungary of late years more indefatigably than in most other parts of Europe. The natural resources of the country are indeed so largely dependent on agriculture that this is only what might have been expected.

The Royal Hungarian Minister, M. Darányi, who has proved himself so thorough and so capable a Director of his country’s interests in the direction of Agriculture—amongst other handbooks issued under his orders for popular use—commissioned the well-known naturalist, M. Otto Herman, to prepare the present work, which is intended to give to landowners, farmers, fruit-growers and gardeners such a knowledge of the action, beneficial and otherwise, of birds as would prevent the mistakes which have ended in some districts in our own country, in the wholesale destruction of some very useful species.

The book is enriched by the drawings of a talented artist, M. Titus Csörgey, who, I need not say, is himself a skilled naturalist. These are so executed as to render it easy to the most casual observer to identify the various markings of the plumage as well as the mere form of the bird.

The work makes no pretence at being scientific in the ordinary sense of the word. It has been written with the view of providing a ready handbook for the farmer, the gardener, the student, and bird-lovers generally; and it embodies the result of exact data kept by correspondents of M. Herman’s department in all parts of the country; so that the observations on which its statements are grounded are the results of personal investigation and dissection.

In our country this study of the food of birds and the part they play in the economy of nature has not received the attention it demands. Yet it is one that affects the entire community. It is true that in journals here and there valuable papers on this subject have appeared, but it is felt that among the innumerable books on bird life which have been published of late years there has been a lack which this little volume may supply.

A few words as to myself and my present association with M. Herman. From my earliest childhood I have had a passionate love for birds and flowers. I remember looking with wondering delight on the velvety upturned faces of the variously tinted pansies that bordered the paths leading up to the door of a certain farmhouse where we stayed much in the summer-time, when I was just four years old,—wonder because our mother told us that God’s finger painted them and I used to think that He did it whilst we slept. Our father gave us prizes for the one who could collect the greatest number of wild flowers and knew most about the trees. In the town I collected bird pictures, nursed an occasional wounded sparrow, kept my eyes open generally, and read much of William and Mary Howitt. Then came some years of school life—the last two of these in Germany, where the study of natural history has always received more attention than has hitherto been the case with us in England, and these were followed by a few years at home on the moorlands of Staffordshire. Later I had thirteen years of wandering in different parts of the Pacific—New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, California, all of which strengthened my love of out-door life; and although my scientific knowledge was small, my acquaintance with nature and my love of nature have been ever growing.

As years advanced, and I was no longer able to go so far afield, it has been a great pleasure to me to collaborate with other naturalists—more than one of these—who, with greater opportunities for the practical observation of birds have combined scientific research. I have been glad to act as henchwoman to such—and to be, as it were, the little bird that in its playful and circling way follows the flight of the greater bird in the heavens.

And as I edited—with much gain to my own knowledge—the records of observations of the working naturalist styled “A Son of the Marshes,” so I am glad also to be able to present to our English readers these chapters on the Man and the Bird, and their relative significance in the great field of agriculture.

I visited M. and Madame Herman at their home in the beautiful Hungarian valley of Lillafüred, where his summers are spent in the very heart of nature; and I learned and saw much with him there. He had lived as a boy among these mountains and valleys—his father having been the leading physician in the district. There, he had scoured the woods over which the Snake or Short-toed Eagle circled, climbed up to the Peregrine Falcon’s nest, and boated on the lovely little lake, watching the movements of the Osprey. But indeed his whole life has been devoted to the study of nature, and the fauna of his Country, and his many published writings have had a very large circulation there, as well as in Germany.

M. Herman laments the constantly decreasing number of birds in his native valley. In a spot where he once counted many a Flycatcher’s nest, only two pairs now breed. The Nightingales, formerly plentiful, have entirely forsaken this valley—the Titmice are lessening in numbers, and so on. Yet the masses show no inclination to destroy useful, insect-eating birds—although modern forestry, and gardening, which does not tolerate old trees, and the absence of sheltering hedges over the great Hungarian plains, render many birds—especially the migratory species—homeless.

Numbers of interesting species nest in and visit this valley, however. In winter that beautifully coloured, long-billed Rock-Creeper (Tichodroma muraria)—with wings rose-red above, dashed with white underneath, runs up the rock sides, as does the Tree Creeper on the tree trunks—a blithe, busy creature. This species is found in the same latitude, in rocky mountain ranges eastward, as far as Northern China. The great slanting rocky spurs, that gleam with rosy light, or pale blue, as the sun runs its daily course, this rock climber delights in. The Rock Thrush breeds in the same ridges; the Long-tailed Tit has its nest there; near the ground in the woods, are the breeding-places of the familiar Coal-Tit; where fir-trees abound it is at home. The less welcome Red-backed Shrike pursues his cruel little methods here, lessening the numbers of more useful and more attractive birds. Waterfalls abound, and among the brooks, from stone to stone, trips the merry Dipper, showing his pretty breast and red underparts—building his large house near the running water, in whose pools fine trout are in plenty.

We have rested together in a little cove on the lake at Hamar, which is overhung by luxuriant foliage; across the water, over the dense woods, floats a solitary Eagle—that seeks his quarry in the shades below. Otto Herman knew his breeding-place as a boy. Tradition says the nest is at least a hundred years old, yet each year the young are still fed there.

That Great Britain has still much to do in the direction of Bird Protection is definitely shown in a leaflet just issued (December, 1908) by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, of whose Council I have the honour to be a member. Of the 370 or 380 species placed on the list of “British birds,” scarcely 200 can now be justly termed British. I may be allowed to give you here some idea of the principal agents in this destruction of birds as set forth by our Society:—

“First, there are those who destroy for destruction’s sake; the boy who ravages the hedgerows in spring and delights in catapults, air-guns, and stones at all times; the lout with a gun; and the cockney sportsman. They are responsible for a vast amount of cruelty, especially to nesting birds and nestlings; for the killing of various home-birds and migrants, and for the senseless shooting of sea-birds and occasionally of rare visitants.

“Secondly, the bird-catcher, responsible for the decrease of all those birds sought for caging, such as Goldfinch, Linnet, Siskin, Lark, etc. This class, like the first-named, requires dealing with, chiefly because of the intolerable amount of ill-treatment involved by the methods employed in the catching, transit, and sale of wild birds. The destruction of the useful Lapwing, and of the Skylark for the table, is also a point in need of attention; and in the same category may be placed the so-called sparrow-clubs, which encourage the indiscriminate killing of many species of small birds.

“Thirdly, the gamekeeper, responsible for the extinction, or extreme rarity of most of our large birds, especially predatory species and uncommon visitors.

“Fourthly, the private collector with a craze for rare British-taken birds and eggs, or, in the case of the humbler persecutor of beautiful species, for something to put in a glass case.

“Fifthly, the trader and the feathered woman, jointly responsible for the devastation wrought among the loveliest birds of all lands.”

We have included a few useful species here, which are only visitants to our country, but which, with more protection, might remain for part of the year with us regularly.