BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



63 



applies to dead birds only, and that the dealer 

 or possessor must prove their importation. 



Allusion has been already made to the trouble 

 surging round the words " recently taken." 

 This becomes most manifest in the case of live 

 birds in the possession of bird-catchers and 

 dealers. The panting Skylark in the small cage 

 on the cottage wall, the Linnets and Goldfinches 

 penned up in the dealer's shop have never been 

 " recently taken " ; it needs an expert to prove 

 that they are. In some discussion on this point 

 in Bird Notes and News (December, 1904) 

 Sir George Kekewich, M.P., hit the nail squarely 

 on the head. The remedy, he said, is to 

 eliminate these two words, at the same time 

 exempting purchasers of birds taken before the 

 passing of the Amending Act. Were this altera- 

 tion made, and the 1881 clause straightened 

 out, police and public might have clearer ideas 

 as to the legality or otherwise of the possession 

 of wild birds during close time. It would 

 simply be illegal to possess or sell a wild bird in 

 that season, or, in the case of fully-protected 

 birds, at any time of the year. 



The effect of these small, but weighty, altera- 

 tions would be : in the case of Eggs, that 

 possession or sale of illegally-taken specimens 

 would be as unlawful as the taking of them. 

 In the case of Birds, that the possession of a 

 dead bird during the time in which it is pro- 

 tected in any county would be illegal in that 

 county unless it is proved to be brought from 

 some place where it may be lawfully killed ; 

 that the possession of a live bird during the time 

 it is protected by law would be unlawful in the 

 place and at the time where and when it is 

 unlawful to take it. 



In that consolidation of the Acts which is 

 bound to come, some such amendments as these 

 are needed if the law is to be comprehensible, 

 effective and just. The possessor is not only as 

 bad as the thief, but it is the desire of possession 

 and sale which in ninety cases out of a hundred 

 instigates the killing or snaring. 



If County Councils were then to agree to 

 protect certain birds and their eggs for a given 

 number of years, there might at last be some 

 chance for fast-dying species to recover them- 



selves and to be saved to the British avifauna, 

 seeing that it would then be illegal to take 

 or possess or sell them throughout the country. 



It would, of course, be easy to give powers to 

 exempt public museums and aviaries, and, if 

 desirable, to issue individual permits. 



THE MIGRATION" OF BIRDS. 



The second Report of the Committee appointed 

 by the British Ornithologists Club to study the 

 migrations of British birds is, as was last year's 

 issue, a volume of great interest to all students of 

 birds and their ways. It gives an account, compiled 

 from the observations of a large number of 

 observers, of the immigrations during 1906 of 

 thirty-three of our commoner summer residents ; 

 and the notes on each species are accompanied by 

 a map showing when and where the birds arrived 

 in this country and how they gradually dispersed 

 to their accustomed haunts. For the present the 

 Committee are concerned only with the record ot 

 facts ; they do not propose to draw any conclusions 

 or generalizations until the work has been 

 continued over a series of years ; and meantime 

 the assistance of more observers is urgently 

 needed. Anyone willing to help should com- 

 municate with Mr. J. L. Bonhote, Hon. Secretary 

 to the Committee, at 3, Hanover Square, W. It 

 is a work that may well appeal to Bird Protectors, 

 being based entirely on field observations, and 

 not necessitating the killing of any of the little 

 weary wanderers who come back to the old 

 country with the lengthening days, and who 

 bring so much of the melody that floods our land 

 in spring-time. 



It appears from the Report that Hampshire 

 is the county most favoured as a point of 

 arrival, this county receiving stragglers from 

 flocks arriving both in Devonshire and Sussex, and 

 thus forming one of the main landing-places 

 along the south coast ; Devonshire, Dorset, and 

 Sussex come next, and Kent last. Birds actually 

 arriving on the east coast were few, but the 

 evidence points to a considerable emigration from 

 Norfolk of birds which arrived in Devon or 

 Hampshire and took a north-easterly route. The 

 records extend from the middle of March to the 

 first week of June, and on only five days between 

 March 16th and May 31st was no immigration 

 recorded on our coasts, the season of 1906 being 

 noticeable for the prolonged period during which 

 many of the species arrived. The earlier part of 



