16 



her an immense importance ; so much so that it is no exaggeration 

 to say that no legislation on the subject in Central Europe can 

 be really effective unless the stream of bird-life which passes 

 through Italy is properly protected. From time immemorial 

 the Italians have been inveterate fowlers. With the curious 

 exception of the duck-decoy* there is hardly any known apparatus 

 or device for encompassing the destruction of birds with wliich 

 the Italian is not familiar ; while the number of victims annually 

 claimed by the " Roccolo " and the " Brescianella " is almost 

 incredible. It is not merely that the Italian peasant is poor 

 and eagerly welcomes any addition to his pot, but the catching of 

 birds is in him a deep-rooted instinct, a habit inherited from his 

 ancestors. 



There is a popular belief that there are no regulations in Italy 

 which bear on the subject of the protection of birds ; this, however, 

 has no foundation in fact. On the contrary, many of the 

 Provinces have laws, and some of these are of considerable 

 antiquity, dating from the period prior to the unity of the 

 Kingdom. Thus, in the Venetian Provinces there are still in 

 force laws of 1804, 1805 and 1816 ; in Tuscany, a law of 1856 ; in 

 the Duchy of Parma, laws of 1824, 1828 and 1835 ; in the Duchy 

 of Modena laws of 1815 and 1826 ; in Naples and Sicily, the law 

 dates from 1819 ; in the Papal States there are laws of 1826 and 

 1839 ; Piedmont, Lombardy, Sardinia and Marches have laws of 

 1836, 1844, 1845 and 1853 respectively. A perusal of these laws 

 will disclose that close seasons are provided for breeding birds, 

 and that licenses are necessary for permission to catch or destroy ; 

 but not only is there no uniform law applicable to the whole 

 sixty- nine provinces, but there is no really effective law in any 

 single one of them. The result is that wholesale massacre of 

 useful birds continues, especially at the seasons of migration and 

 in the northern provinces. 



It should be mentioned that by Section 217 of the Communal 

 and Provincial Law, approved by the Italian Parliament on the 

 4th May, 1898, Provincial Councils are given power to fix the 

 months within which shooting is forbidden ; but this tends to 

 produce less uniformity than ever. 



In spite of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, Italy has on 

 various occasions considered the question of putting her own 

 laws on a uniform scientific basis, and has also shown some 

 sympathy with international schemes for the protection of birds. 

 When the Austro-Hungarian Government endeavoured to call 

 attention to the subject in 1869 Italy expressed her approval ; 

 in 1875 she even signed a joint Declaration by which Austria 



* See Macpherson's " History of Fowling," p. 255. 



