ease 
Scornanp:—Banff; Dumfries; Elgin; Fife (Tentsmuir); Kirkcudbright; Peebles ; 
Roxburgh; Selkirk; Sutherland; Wigtown. 
In these counties any owner, occupier, or other person taking, killing, etc., a Buzzard 
during close season,* or possessing or selling a Buzzard after 15th March, is lable to a 
penalty of £1 for each bird. 
Wild Birds Act, 1894.—Its eggs are protected at present in the following counties :+— 
Enauanp:—Cumberland; Durham; Lancaster; Westmoreland: +York (East 
Riding); York (West Riding); Bedford; Gloucester; Leicester ; Lincoln ; (Kesteven and 
Lindsey) ; Norfolk; Northampton; Soke of Peterborough; Stafford; Hast Suffolk ; 
West Suffolk; Warwick; Devon; +Ess2x; Hertford; Kent; Metropolitan Police 
District (including London and Middlesex) ; Southampton; Hast Sussex ; and County 
Boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness; Huddersfield; Hastings. 
Wa tes :—Brecon. 
Scornanp :—Banff; Dumfries; Elgin; Fife (Tentsmuir) ; Kincardine; Kirkcud- 
bright ; Peebles ; Roxburgh ; Selkirk; Sutherland ; Wigtown. 
Any owner, occupier, or other person, taking or destroying a Buzzard’s egg in these 
counties is liable to a fine of £1 for each egg. 
Wild Birds Act, 1896.—In addition to any penalty under the Act of 1880, the 
Court may now order any trap, net, snare, etc., used by the offender to be forfeited. 
The Buzzard is protected throughout the whole year in the Counties of Gloucester ; 
Devon; Essex (part); London; Middlesex; East Sussex; Flint; and the County 
Boroughs of Kingston-upon-Hull; Hastings; Cardiff. 
VII. Remarks. 
The protection of the larger birds of prey can rarely be secured, except through the 
forbearance of those who, as large owners of land, are most keenly interested in 
preserving game. The sportsman who pays exorbitant rates upon the supposed sporting value 
of his estate, and who has further to prevent his game from being exterminated by maintaining 
a costly staff of keepers and watchers, has it greatly in his power to decide whether the 
Buzzard and other rapacious birds should be allowed to increase and multiply upon his estate. 
If, then, it could be proved that the Buzzard habitually destroyed game, reason is that we should 
throw up the brief which we hold for its defence. But happily the Buzzard does not destroy 
game; on the contrary, all our experience goes to prove the facts laid bare in the stomachs 
of the Buzzards which we have personally dissected (there is all the difference in the world 
between the mere compiler and the man who writes from a wide knowledge of substantial 
facts), that the Buzzard lives on small but harmful mimmals, and on carrion. Of course 
the Buzzard kills rabbits, principally small ones, when it can get them; but this is in its 
favour. Rabbits do immense harm to sheep pasture, not only because they eat a quantity of 
grass during the spring months when food is scarce, but also by defiling the pasturage, 
which sheep refuse to eat in consequence. The short-tailed fieldmouse or yole is most 
injurious to hill pastures, and would multiply enormously were it not for the exertions of 
Buzzards, Kestrels, and Owls. The Buzzard is a friend to the farmer, and well worth 
encouraging on that score. But there is yet another reason why the hand of the destroyer 
should be arrested, before he fixes the iron gin to trap the harmless and useful Buzzard. 
Much of our wildest and most beautiful scenery would seem cold and lifeless, were it not for 
* Generally from 1st March to 31st July, but in some counties from Ist February to 31st August in 
each year. A further period may be obtained through the Act of 1896, as in Middlesex. 
+ In counties marked thus there is a specified area within which protection is granted. 
