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told by an eyc-^\■^tness that lie lias seen tlieiii frec|uently with eaps full uf 

 the eggs of Terns, Peewits, Golden Plover, Ring Plover, and other kinds. 

 Sometimes these were blown in mass, or pelted at each other, until they 

 were all smashed and scattered in every direction. Again, by the same 

 authority, when walking with a friend along the main drain, dozens of 

 eggs of all kinds were seen, evidently quite fresh, ruthlessly smashed and 

 scattered along the banks, some lying whole at the bottom of the water, 

 evidently the scene of some egg-fight the night before. Many a visit 

 is made before daylight, and seventy or eighty eggs secured in 

 sufficient time to admit of a man getting back to Tayport or 

 elsewhere before his work began at six. The salmon fishers on the 

 coast also, during their slack time, gather large quantities of Ring 

 Plover, Arctic and Lesser Tern in their immediate vicinity along the 

 shore, which they either sell or use for food ; and from incessant perse- 

 cution the birds are getting altogether driven off the ground. The 

 Lesser Tern lays only two eggs, consee^uently, if this goes on mucli 

 longer, very little more will extirpate them altogether. Not only do the 

 Terns suffer from all these depredations, but also from natural causes. 

 Numbers of young birds are often destroyed wholesale by lugh north- 

 west winds causing sand drift, especially in dry weather. To a person 

 not accustomed to see one of these storms, it is something extraordinary ; 

 and Mr Henderson tells me he has seen Terns from one to eight days 

 old perfectly annihilated, and not only buried, but the poor soft downy 

 little things rolled over and over as they were hurled swiftly along like 

 so many pieces of tow, quite dead, and never stopping tiU held by some 

 bit of drift wood. This is one among the many provisions of Nature to 

 keep the proper balance. A severe winter comes, or some great storm 

 arises, when hundreds of our sea birds perish, and our coasts have been 

 strewn for miles with their dead bodies, the Gamiet among the rest, 

 showing that -with protection and all, we need not fear to be overrun. 

 It must be borne in mind that sea birds were far more numerous eighty 

 or a hundred years ago than at the present date, and that at a time 

 when our fisheries were not even protected as they are now, and there 

 never was any complaint of the want of either salmon or herring — on 

 the contrary, they both abounded ; nor has there since the passing of 

 the Act, ten or twelve years ago, been any undue increase. It is, there- 

 fore, to be hoped that not only the integrity of the Act will be main- 

 tained, but that the destruction of eggs and the shooting of birds in 

 close time will be discountenanced in future, for we should ever recollect 

 that all tilings which a beneficent Creator has . put un der our cliarge 

 and vouchsafed to give us, arc for our use, and not our abuse. 



78 FE8 TSUH 



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