62 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



and sends his specimen at once into the market, 

 let us say to Mr. Stevens's sale-rooms in Covent 

 Garden. There is not the slightest reason why 

 Mr. Stevens should concern himself and study 

 schedules of complicated County Council Orders 

 in order to discover whether or not any one of 

 the hundreds of lots committed to his charge 

 has or has not been illegally taken ; that he has 

 withdrawn such lots on every occasion when 

 the facts of the case have been represented to 

 him by the Society, was entirely a voluntary and 

 praiseworthy recognition on his part of the spirit 

 of the Act. In the catalogue of a sale held last 

 month (May, 1907), there were, inter a/ia, two 

 lots of Woodcocks' eggs, and two of Buzzards', 

 taken this year in districts where they are "pro- 

 tected"; yet because the person who took them 

 was not seen or proved to have done so he may 

 openly sell them (though not through Mr. Stevens) 

 and pocket the profit. 



To make possession or sale absolutely illegal 

 in itself will not, it may be said, touch the 

 private collector or private dealer who keeps 

 his doings dark ; to a great extent this is un- 

 fortunately true, yet it would have a wholesome 

 influence, for most collections come into the 

 market sooner or later, and it would for many 

 persons take the bloom off even a " scientific " 

 specimen if it could not be legally disposed of. 



Let us turn next to the case of the rare bird 

 which has been killed, shot "in mistake" (like 

 Mr. Astley's Parrakeet referred to on another 

 page) perhaps by a keeper or farmer or other 

 owner of a gun. Mistake or not, the rare dead 

 bird commonly finds its way to the taxidermist 

 and thence to a glass case. Here the present 

 law may be a trifle more helpful. The posses- 

 sion of a bird " recently taken " is illegal " after 

 the 15th of March," provided, etc., etc. But 

 its help is not worth much after all, for the 

 prohibition is wrapped up in a tangle of words 

 and phrases which leave the legal expert un- 

 certain as to the exact meaning of them, and 

 the general public hopelessly fogged. The Act 

 of 1896, giving County Councils power to 

 protect birds all the year round, has knocked 

 out all the sense that ever existed in the words 

 "after March 15th." They were originally 



intended to give the dealer, in either live or 

 dead birds, a fortnight's grace after the com- 

 mencement of statutory close time (March 1st) 

 in which to get rid of his stock of birds taken 

 before that date. The date for the beginning 

 of close time for all birds varies, however, in 

 different counties from February 1st to March 

 15th; while some birds, and those presumably 

 the most precious, enjoy in certain counties a 

 close time throughout the year. Moreover, 

 now that the principal Act has been on the 

 Statute Book over a quarter of a century, there 

 is no occasion whatever to give the fortnight's 

 or month's or six weeks' grace (as the case 

 may be) to the dealers. Possession should 

 become illegal co-incidentally with the killing or 

 taking. 



In the case of birds protected all the year, it 

 is to be supposed that possession is already 

 illegal at any time. Is then a stuffed King- 

 fisher an unknown thing in Surrey or an Owl 

 never seen in a glass case in Hampshire ? 

 Ah, but such birds are not, it may be said, 

 "recently taken." Does a bird-stuffer never 

 have confided to him, as just shot, a bird which 

 is known to be protected in the county ? Yes, 

 but it was shot in dangerous proximity to a 

 pheasantry, or by mistake, or through sheer 

 kindness because it was in a feeble state of 

 health ; and, anyhow, it is no business of the 

 taxidermist to tell on his employer, and it is 

 very doubtful that his own temporary possession 

 is of an illegal character. Rather does he take 

 a " naturalist's " interest in his work, and send 

 a paragraph to the local paper. Or the answer 

 may be that the bird was shot not in that county, 

 but half a mile outside it, where the species is 

 not protected. The Amending Act of 1881 

 supplies an extraordinarily unintelligible clause 

 exempting from the operation of the law birds 

 held in possession in a county where they are 

 protected if they were killed in a place where it 

 was legal to kill them. This clause was passed 

 in order primarily to allow game to be eaten 

 out of season, provided that it is brought from 

 another country or has been kept in ice since 

 the shooting season ; but it imperatively needs 

 recasting, in order to show quite clearly that it 



