Mouse-trap Set for Wild Birds

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 311, 17 December 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

Mouse-trap Set for Wild Birds

POSTMAN SAID THEY RUINED FRUIT A man who set mouse-traps in his apple tree to catch birds which were eating his apples was fined £1 and 21s costs at Ascot, England. He was William Taylor, tailor and postman, of Cheapside, Ascot. His conviction was for causing unnecessary suffering to a captive bird by" unreasonably omitting to give it care and attention when in captive state.

Mr Gordon Jones, for the R.S.P.C.A., said that a tit was caught by its legs in a trap in the tree. Its shrill cries of pain attracted a neighbour’s attention.

Alfred Clark Batten, the chief inspector to the K.S.P.C.A., produced two ordinary spring-back mouse-traps which he said were set and baited with meat in an apple tree in Taylor 's garden.

“Taylor told me,” he said, “that he set traps to catch the tits because they pecked the apples. ‘The wasps get in and the apples rot,’ ” he added.

In a statement from the dock, Taylor said; “The whole trouble is that these birds come directly the fruit is getting ripe and the ground is covered with fallen apples. ‘‘l thought I was justified in trying to catch them. 1 didn’t know the law to that extent.”

The magistrates dismissed as a first offence another charge to which Taylor pleaded guilty—that of placing in a tree spring traps likely to cause injury to birds.