20 JANUARY 1933, Page 13

This is old history. I imagine that such trade no

longer continues, for the Zoo in any country is the institution that can best supply the public with the tame birds that it desires. It was, for example, one of the incidental aims of the making of a Zoo at Whipsnade that it would enable some birds, as well as many mammals, to breed happily and freely in con- ditions of captivity. Trade in such produce of a Zoo is reasonable and right. Direct trade in birds caught in the wild, whatever their age, should be illegitimate in law and offensive to individual and public taste.