BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



75 



achievements more frankly than is customary 

 in these days of protection laws, having no 

 occasion to disguise the purpose of his travels 

 by dilating on his enthusiasm for nature-study or 

 photography. He chronicles without reserve, 

 for instance, that the Horned Grebe was 

 extremely rare, and that he saw only one on 

 Shetland, which he " fortunately shot " in May, 

 when it was in perfect breeding plumage. But 

 if those were days when only one kind of bird 

 " preservation " occurred to men's minds, and 

 when the glory of life and motion and intelligence 

 and song formed no part of the naturalist's bird, 

 it has to be remembered on the other hand that 

 communication was comparatively difficult and 

 slow, few persons travelled — the story of "parties 

 from the south," reads like an episode of to-day — 

 and discomfort and even danger had to be 

 encountered by the men who sought for rare 

 fowl in out of the way regions. Above all, 

 there had not yet arisen that craze for collecting 

 British-taken birds and eggs which has been 

 degraded to the level of a curio-hunt in which 

 everyone with money and a dealer's address can 

 join, and in pursuit of which even officers and 

 clergymen, whose "honour" is supposed to be 

 worth more than other people's, will defy the 

 law if in so doing they may gain something for 

 themselves at the cost of thinning down or 

 wiping out a threatened species. 



A journey to the Hebrides or Shetlands is 

 little more than a week-end trip nowadays ; 

 almost every nesting-place of the rarest birds is, 

 unhappily, only too well known ; and there is 

 money to be made out of the spoliation of the 

 British avifauna. Consequently the need is 

 great for the provision of Watchers in these far 

 isles, which are the home of so many interesting 

 birds, and next year the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds intend to redouble the 

 efforts made by them in 1906 and 1907. With 

 the support of bird-lovers, and the co-operation 

 of those resident on the islands, it is to be 

 hoped that some future Ornithologists' Guide 

 may be able to state that these efforts have 

 resulted in "the Vikings' Land" becoming a 

 practical sanctuary for the most notable of our 

 coast and sea birds. 



THE INTERNATIONAL 

 CONVENTION FOR THE PROTEC- 

 TION OF BIRDS.* 



When Great Britain stood aside from the Inter- 

 national Convention for the Protection of Birds, 

 concluded in 1902, there were many bird-lovers 

 who felt keenly disappointed by her seemingly un- 

 sympathetic attitude ; and there were others who 

 held that our country, having already carried 

 legislation in some respects further than was pro- 

 posed at the Convention, would in a manner be 

 going back on herself if she became one of the 

 parties to the agreement entered into by other 

 European countries. 



What the Convention exactly suggested, or 

 carried through, is, however, unknown to the 

 majority of British people, and probably of British 

 naturalists. All interested in the question are 

 therefore much indebted to the Royal Hungarian 

 Minister of Agriculture, His Excellency Ignatius 

 de Daranyi, for the excellent English translation 

 that has been prepared and issued by his order, of 

 the whole history of the subject of International 

 Protection culminating in the Convention. The 

 work is written by Mr. Otto Herman, of the 

 Hungarian Central Bureau of Ornithology, whose 

 name is well known to all ornithologists, and it 

 includes an account of the progress of the move- 

 ment in Hungary, which, as a pre-eminently 

 agricultural country, has taken a leading place in 

 the protection of useful birds, and did much to 

 pilot the international conferences and discussions 

 to a practical issue. 



International protection originated with the 

 German farmers and foresters who, alarmed by the 

 continued increase of destructive insects side by 

 side with the decrease of small birds, appealed to 

 the Austro-Hungarian Government in 1S6S to join 

 other States in an agreement for the protection of 

 useful birds. The subject was brought to the 

 front at the Economic Congress at Vienna in 1873, 

 and the International Ornithological Congresses 

 at Vienna and Budapest in 18S4 and 1S91 ; the 

 draft of the Convention was accepted at the 

 International Bird Protection Conference in Paris 

 in 1895 ; and the Convention was signed in 1902 by 

 the delegates of Austria, Hungary, Germany, 

 Belgium, Spain, France, Greece, Luxemburg, 

 Monaco, Portugal, Sweden and Norway, and 

 Switzerland. 



•The Intkrnational Convention for the Protection ok 



Biros concluded in 1902; and Hungary. Historical Sketch, 

 written by order of His Excellency, Ignatius de Daranyi. Hungarian 

 Minister of Agriculture, by Oito Herman, late M.P., Director of 

 the Hung. Cent. Bur. f. Ornithology. Budapest, 1907. 



