Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: :: 



Vol. VI. ] 



SPRING, 1914. 



[No. 1. 



Sir Sydney Buxton and Bird Protection. 



The Right Hon. Sir Sydney Buxton, 

 G.C.M.G., who has been appointed to 

 succeed Lord Gladstone as Governor- 

 General of South Africa, has been, as 

 is well known, an active worker in the 

 cause of Bird Protection for many years, 

 and in many phases of the question. It 

 would perhaps be hardly too much to 

 say that, studiously moderate and quiet 

 as he has been in all that he has written 

 and spoken on the subject, there is 

 hardly a branch of the work which has 

 not received from him stimulus and 

 support. The caging of birds, the guard- 

 ing of rare species, the charm and utility 

 of British bird-life, the preservation of 

 the rare and finely-plumaged birds of 

 other lands, the prevention of cruel 

 trapping, the effective enforcement of 

 the law, have all in turn had his keen 

 attention ; and three of the Bird Pro- 

 tection Acts in the Statute-book owe 

 their presence there largely to his skilful 

 piloting through the House of Commons, 

 as well as to his sympathy with their 

 object. 



The intimate association of Sir Sj^dney 

 Buxton with the Plumage campaign is 

 perhaps insufficiently realised, especially 

 as he was lost to the House of Commons 

 before the present Bill came on for 

 debate. Sixteen years ago he issued 

 an appeal against the wearing of 

 " osprey " plumes, which was published 

 by the R.S.P.B. as Leaflet No. 30 and 

 has been reprinted again and again. 

 Two years later, speaking at the Society's 

 annual meeting, he observed that it 



was difficult to say what had been 

 achieved by the fight against this fashion, 

 but that public opinion had been un- 

 questionably aroused. Since then public 

 opinion has hardened and extended per- 

 haps even more than the speaker then 

 deemed probable, and has decreed the 

 second reading of the Government 

 Plumage Bill, which had on its intro- 

 duction, in 1913, Mr. Sydney Buxton's 

 name to back it. As President of the 

 Board of Trade he has had an opportunity 

 of studying the practical aspects of this 

 business ; it was he who suggested the 

 Colonial Office Committee called by Lord 

 Crewe ; and there can be little doubt 

 as to his large and important share 

 in the drafting and introduction of 

 the Bill. 



As long ago as 1888, the Sandgrouse 

 Act, passed to protect a rush of these 

 foreign visitors to Britain, was steered 

 through the House by Mr. Buxton. 

 In 1902 he was in charge of the Society's 

 Bill which supplements the previous 

 Protection Acts by providing for the 

 forfeiture of birds and eggs illegally 

 taken. In 1904 he secured the passage 

 of the long-desired Act for prohibiting 

 that vilest of traps, the Pole-trap. 



In addition to these services to the 

 cause, Sir Sydney took charge in 1898 

 of a Bill to provide for the enforcement 

 of the Protection Acts by the Royal 

 Irish Constabulary ; this was read a 

 second time, but was subsequently with- 

 drawn as the end was attained by other 

 means. 



