Nature class for city boys: Country diary 100 years ago

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 5 June 1917

Upwards of sixty members of a Manchester lads' club spent Whit-week near Redesmere; two pairs of willow wrens nested in the fields the boys camped and played in. These boys are not slow, and found some nests, but they failed to discover the neat little domed, feather-lined homes of the warblers. Perhaps, however, the presence of so many lively youngsters was too much for one pair, although the nest was in the safest corner of one field, for the birds deserted their spotted eggs about the middle of the week. The other nest was close to a busy roadway to the farm, along which, in addition to the boys, cyclists, vehicles, and motors passed constantly; perhaps this traffic saved the birds, for on Sunday, after the lads had left, one of the pair was sitting undisturbed.

Naturally many city boys know little about nature, though they are sharp enough in other ways. Taking birds' eggs is forbidden, but rules are sometimes broken, and three juveniles brought me an egg to look at and tell them what bird had laid it; probably that particular egg would never hatch, though it was returned to the nest. Each of the boys was asked to guess what the egg was, and the three birds named were the waterhen, thrush, and wild duck; it was an egg of the reed bunting! It is fair to add that these boys had not attended the classes now held at the Manchester Museum.