74 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



The necessity for protection of our more 

 lireeious and more threatened birds, beyond 

 the tenn of the nesting-period, and for further 

 measures to check destruction by the bird- 

 catcher, now became imperative. The latter 

 and less-successful effort may be taken first. 



The Annual Report of the Society for the 

 Protection of Birds for 1894, says : — 



" The new Act, which seeks to protect our rare 

 species by seciiring them from molestation during 

 the breeding-season, has caused mxich controversy, 

 and ()j)inions are still divided as to its workability ; 

 whereas there has been no controversy and there 

 is no difference of opinion on the bird-catching 

 question. Here all men are agreed, and have been 

 agi-eed for many years past, that legislation is 

 greatly needed. . . The birds that survive 

 and are properly cared for by their buyers, are a 

 small remnant : for the rest, the bird-catching 

 industry is merely a massacre of creatures which 

 have their use in nature, and at the same time 

 give to the country its greatest charm. . . That 

 it should be lawful for men from the slimis of East 

 London and of other towns to go out into the 

 highways and conamons and drain the country-side 

 of its wild bird-life seems almost incredible." 



Presiding at the Annua] Meeting of the 

 Society the following February, Mr. Sydney 

 Buxton expressed the opinion that "A Bill 

 should be introduced i nto Parliament, dealing 

 with tliis important (juestion, for it was 

 monstrous that public roads and walks should 

 l)e utilized by trappers, with all the cruelties 

 attendant on their practice, such as the 

 torture of the decoy birds and the captivity 

 of the victims in suffocating little cages." 

 He promised such a Bill his earnest support. 

 A year later the Society supported by 

 unanimous resolution at its meeting, a Bill 

 framed by its Chairman Mr. Sharpe, dealing 

 M'ith. })ird-catchers as trespassers, and pro- 

 viding for the seizure of their nets and decoys. 

 This Bill was introduced into the House of 

 Lords on March 12th, 1896, by Lord Stamford, 

 Mho stated that he brought it forward at 

 the instance of the Society for the Protection 

 of Birds, an association that had exercised 

 a most beneficial influence upon legislation 

 of this character. Its object was to remedy 

 two defects of the Act of 1880, which required 

 that a liird-catoher must be caught in the very 



deed, and gave no power for the confiscation 

 of his apparatus. The County Councils 

 Association considered that some additional 

 check was necessary on account of the nui- 

 sance caused by professional bird-catchers 

 and other unauthorized persons trespassing 

 in pursuit of wild-birds with nets, guns, and 

 snares ; with attendant danger to the public, 

 and possible extinction of interesting and 

 valuable species of birds. 



The trespass clause of the Bill was confined 

 to the Metropolitan Police district, but the 

 Home Secretary might issue a similar Order 

 for any county on the application of the 

 Council. The clause made it an indictabls 

 offence for any person to trespass upon land 

 " having in his possession or being in com 

 pany with any other person having any trap, 

 net, snare, line, caged bird, gun, or other 

 instrument used for killing or taking any 

 wild-bird." The second j)art of the Bill 

 provided that, where any person was found 

 offending against this Act or the Act of 1880, 

 it should be lawful for the owner or occupier 

 of the land or his servant or the police, to 

 seize any of the instruments for killing or 

 taking birds in the possession of the offender, 

 or of any person accompanying him, and to 

 detain them until the sitting of the Court, 

 when the Court might, on conviction, order 

 the articles to be destroyed or sold. 



Lord Belper, on behalf of the Home Office, 

 opposed the Bill, as going to unnecessary 

 lengths and introducing sweeping changes 

 in the law of trespass. As to the clause 

 giving the Home Secretary power to extend 

 its provisions, the Home Secretarj^ did not 

 want that power put upon him. He sug- 

 gested that if such provisions were thought 

 desirable, the Bill might be amalgamated 

 with Lord Jei\sey's Bill, \\ith which the 

 House was acquainted, and which dealt 

 with the same object in a very different vs ay. 

 Finding the Government against him. Lord 



