La Quotidienne

It is announced that the "Ornithological Society of France will visit the Camargue next spring and assess the ornithological riches there". Having reproduced this news, southern newspapers, well placed, one must admit, to be exactly informed, wonder if the ornithological riches that are hoped for will be found in the Camargue, because poachers, even more than hunters, hunt birds of all sizes and species mercilessly and at all times.
You must, in fact, have never set foot in the South to be unaware that it is the dream country of poaching and a paradise for poachers. Alphonse Daudet only transcribed reality, in his Tartarin, by showing us the famous hunters of Tarascon, for want of an unobtainable game bird or fur, carrying out massacres of caps: it has been a long time, in fact, that in the surroundings of Tarascon and in the whole southern region, the intrepid hunters and the skillful poachers destroyed even the very hope of a brood! The author of these Quotidiennes remembers that more than twenty-five years ago, when he was in Nyons, in the Drôme, in the spring, where he stayed until May, skewers of small birds, caught in a trap, were commonly served at the table d'hôte. Officials, who were staying at this hotel, showed no surprise to see this game on the menu in such a season, that of nests and broods. They seemed to find it quite natural that they were served, in the month of April, dishes of warblers and robins. Individuals, fit for nothing but evil, had specialized in capturing small birds with which they supplied all the hotels in the city. They operated in full view of the most official authorities, without anyone thinking of hindering them in the exercise of their detestable profession of idlers and destroyers. It is likely that the same indulgence and tolerance continue to be shown towards people who are, in all likelihood, excellent voters. The miracle is that there are still birds in a region where they are the object of constant hunting.

And in Corsica then? Corsica deserves, in all respects, the name of "Island of Beauty" that is often given to it, it is, in almost all its parts, nothing more than an immense garden of perfumed flowers and tasty berries. Blackbirds frolic in the scrubland, where they gorge themselves on wild fruits. They are caught, with the help of traps and snares, by the thousands and tens of thousands; they are made into pâtés and preserves: they are captured and killed without restraint or rule. In this country, in fact, every man is a hunter and walks at all times with his rifle; the hunting license is, moreover, no less unknown than that of carrying a weapon.
Everything suggests that the Ornithological Society of France would waste its effort and its eloquence in trying to preach in this country the love of small birds and the need to protect them. Its efforts would be no less sterile in almost all of the South; too often, there is no other way of loving birds than roasted on a spit or fried in salmis.

PAUL MATHIEX.