Note 17 — A RHINOCEROS MOVING SLOWLY THROUGH THE GRASS OF THE VELT—TAKEN WITH THE TELEPHOTO-LENS AT A DISTANCE OF 120 METRES, AND WHERE THERE WAS NO COVER. THE ANIMAL LOOKED REMARKABLY LIKE AN ANT-HILL. ON ITS BACK ONE SEES A BIRD—(BUPHAGUS ERYTHRORHYNCUS, Stanl.)—HUNTING FOR TICKS. III New Light on the Tragedy of Civilisation

The author believes that he cannot better give expression to his views as to the preservation of the beauties of nature, than by reproducing an article on the appearance of the stork in the Soldin district, by Herr M. Kurth. He writes in Die Jagd, Illustrierte Wochenschrift für deutsche Jäger, May 13, 1906:

“As for the stork-shooting appointed by the District Committee of the districts of Soldin, Landsberg and Ost-Sternberg for the period from March 1 to June 15, it is to be remarked that the opinions held by sportsmen as to the damage done by storks, especially in reference to small game, are very much divided, and that not much can be put to the reckoning of ‘Brother Longlegs’ of those misdeeds that figure heavily in the accounts of other robbers, such as the crane, the magpie, and all kinds of native birds of prey, and the hedgehog, marten, and polecat. These one and all carry off nestlings, and most of them attack young leverets also. Now if we are to go for the stork, it should of course be done when he is to be found together in too great numbers; and this is entirely the idea of the District Committee. The neighbourhood of Balz bei Vietz on the Eastern Railway has always been remarkable for the number of its storks’ nests. One finds two of them on nearly every one of the old barns, a nest at each end of the roof. It was so even thirty years ago, and so it is to this day. But the proprietors of the barns never agree to the nests of the storks being destroyed, or any opposition made to the settling there of these trustful and friendly birds. And for what reasons precisely has ‘Friend Adebar’ settled in such numbers in this district? Well, here the far-spreading meadows of the Warthe, with their full scope for extended flight, offer him all the food he wants and to spare, and here the frogs’ legs must be particularly good. It may be that now and again a young partridge or a leveret strays into Mother Stork’s kitchen, but that is the exception. Now if people keep strictly to the object indicated by the District Committee, namely to bring down the numbers of the storks where there are too many of them, one may let it pass. But how many will out of a mere shooting-mania take aim continually at the harmless birds!—though such are never genuine sportsmen. How can this be checked? And it should not be forgotten that in the first week of April our African guests are to be found in hundreds along the Warthe brook, whence they then disperse to various parts of the neighbouring districts. Now it is to be hoped that no one will assume that the stork is to be found here ‘in too great numbers,’ and that therefore ‘one may blaze away at him.’ In some years this may possibly be the case, but if he were scared out of the district our landscape would be the poorer by the loss of the bird’s welcome cry, as has happened in the case of the heron and the cormorant in our district. This last-named bird comes now only seldom, and then only one at a time, to the Netze, near Driesen. There was a heronry formerly near Waldowstrenk in the Neumark district, but it disappeared ten years ago. We must hope that this will not be the fate of the stork, whose appearance has so many links with the poetry of our childhood, and that we shall not be deprived of his presence. What a pleasing sight it is when ‘Brother Longlegs’ with dignified walk stalks beside the mower at haymaking time, looking so confiding and fearless! And what a joy it is to old and young when the first stork of the season wheels in circles over the homestead, when for the first time he comes down to his old nest, and announces his arrival with a joyful outcry! Must not every sympathetic and thoughtful lover of nature be filled with sorrow and indignation when, on the pretext of petty thefts, but probably out of mere wanton love of destruction, attempts are made to drive out of our country this friendly bird, which is so pleasing an ornament of the landscape? It would really be a crime against the out-door beauty of our native land, and against nature all around us, if out of narrow-minded selfishness we were to extirpate the stork, as happened in recent times to that most splendidly coloured of our birds, the kingfisher, on mere suspicion of its being a ‘great destroyer’ of fish. Love of nature, joy in nature, is a valuable element in German feeling, and therefore, dear fellow sportsman, let us maintain our good character!”