SAN MICHELE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 515, 26 April 1933, Page 5

SAN MICHELE

WELL-KNOWN NOVEL DRAWS RESPONSE FROM MUSSQLINI. PROTECTION OF BIRD LIFE. The wanton and .cruel destruction of the birds on Capri Island, near Naples, had gone on for centuries, and yet-the fact was fully known to people that could and should have talcen action to stop it. Much of the world is selfish much is complacent, and much does not care. Dr. Alexander Munthe's . hook, "The Story of San Michele," twith its strong dramatic appeal, compelled attention, and the great Mossolini as a consequence enacted legislation and has changed Capri from a huge bird trap to a bird sanctuary. There are no half measures, dire punishment is the lot of any transgressors. I na letter to Lord Howard of Penrith, Hr. Munthe writes: — "I have just received an official communique . that , by order of II Duce (Signor : Mussolini) a special Decreto Legge— decree with' the f orce of law— has been published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, declaring the whole island of Capri a bird sanctuary, with seyere punishment for MHing any birds the whole ' year round. It is added in the com- . muniqu.e that 'this provision will make a great imp.ression in the animal-lov-ing 'world, both in Italy and abroadf.' • So it will, Capri being known since the time of the iRomans for the exception-

i ally large number of migratory birds coming here every spring to rest, or die, after their long flight across the Mediterranean. I could never have believed that ihy hook should have created such a great sensation.in Itaily. In my letter of thanks to Mussolini, : I have told him that 'he could not have trusted to more eloquent collaborators than to these thnosands and thousands of missionaries of the slcy that propaganda abroad for the sacred cause he personifiesf Wh'at it m'earis ' to me you will realise better ttiari most people. In'deed, it means the croiwning success of my hook. It means the saving o'f the lives every spring of ihuosands of exhausted migratory birds, many of thern oht their ' way to inaugurate summer in an Engifsii g^aen. if ttiis is not litehaf^ success, I really do not know what literary success means." .