58 
each offence, and it may be presumed that the exemption in favour 
of naturalists desirous of studying their habits or history and 
having them preserved as cabinet specimens, will commend itself 
to the most fastidious collector. Such an Act, if applied to our 
own country, would operate favourably in many ways, and lead 
to a restoration of bird life that would prove welcome not only to 
students of nature but to those very persons who, under a mistaken 
prejudice, are at this moment its worst enemies. 
Believing that its insertion here may serve a good purpose, we 
take the opportunity of furnishing our readers with a copy of the 
“Sea Birds Preservation Bill,” which became law throughout Great 
Britain on the 24th of June last. 
An Act for the Preservation of Sea Birds.—[{24th June, 1869.] 
32 and 33 Victoria, Chap. 17. 
WHEREAS the sea birds of the United Kingdom have of late 
years greatly decreased in number; it is expedient therefore to 
provide for their protection during the breeding season: Be it 
enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the 
advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and 
Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
authority of the same: 
1. That the words “sea birds” shall for all the purposes of this 
Act be deemed to include the different species of auk, bonxie, 
Cornish chough, coulterneb, diver, eider duck, fulmar, gannet, 
erebe, guillemot, gull, kittiwake, loon, marrot, merganser, murre, 
oyster catcher, petrel, puffin, razor bill, scout, seamew, sea parrot, 
sea swallow, shearwater, shelldrake, skua, smew, solan goose, 
tarrock, tern tystey, and willock; the word “sheriff” shall include 
steward and also sheriff substitute and steward substitute. 
2. Any person who shall kill, wound, or attempt to kill or 
wound, or take any sea bird, or use any boat, gun, net, or other 
engine or instrument for the purpose of killing, wounding, or 
taking any sea bird, or shall have in his control or possession any 
sea bird recently killed, wounded, or taken, between the first day 
of April and the first day of August in any year, shall, on cOnvic- 
tion of any such offence before any justice or justices of the peace 
in England or Ireland, or before the sheriff or any justice or 
