抄録
Reported here are the organization and activities of Die Vogelschutzwarte am Main, visited by the authors in June 1958. This is one of the seven official West German institutes of bird protection, belonging to one or a few of the provinces. Its main objects are: one, to prevent decrease of any species of birds from the point of view of nature preservation and two, to increase the useful birds, particularly insect-eating small birds, in a simple and least expensive way. It is aimed to raise their density to fifty times as that of present.
The main activities are: 1) Studies for artificial propagation of useful birds. Unlike the results obtained in England and Holland, the basic investigations on food, breeding biology, movements, population density, so far made here, showed that nesting-site, not food supply, is the principal limiting fact in their forest birds. 2) Instruction of forest wardens (Forstbeamten) concerning bird propagation. Each station instructs 10 wardens, or 350 in entire State, two weeks a year to have them engaged in bird propagation after returning to their provinces.) 3) Cooperation of its own bird-protection wardens (Vertrauensleuten). Four thousand wardens are said to be working for the Frankfurt, a. M. Station. 4) Necessary control of harmful species of birds. 5) Planning of meetings for students, children and general people to study bird protection, and their visits to the station.
The authors express their hearty gratitudes to the Direstor, Dr. S. Pfeifer for his kind arrangement of the visit, and to Dr. Keil for his friendly guidance.
