22 



nesting at Trimley in Suffolk. Cranes bred in Fenland in the 

 time of William Turner (1544), mIio writes " earum pipiones 

 scepissime vidi," but they had probably ceased to nest in this 

 country by the end of that century. The Bittern bred in England 

 throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century and would 

 probably do so still if permitted, while the Bustard is said to have 

 vanished from Norfolk, its last British stronghold, in 1838. 

 Perhaps some of these grand species might still have remained 

 with us had the birds and not merely their eggs been protected 

 by the old law. 



Those who are opposed to protection being given to eggs 

 usually base their views upon the assumptions that if the first 

 set of eggs are taken more will probably be laid and that the 

 second set will be hatched. With this view we venture to dis- 

 agree. The first assumption may be true enough, but, un- 

 fortunately, it cannot safely be assumed that the second set of 

 eggs will be left undisturbed. An unscrupulous collector has 

 just as little hesitation in appropriating the second clutch as 

 the first ; wliile another more scrupulous collector may come 

 along and discover the second clutch and take it, not knowing 

 the parents have previously been robbed. 



There can be no doubt that the eggs of many of the larger and 

 rarer species in our country have suffered terribly, and few will 

 deny that in certain cases at any rate protection should be 

 extended to them. 



Each year a large and perhaps increasing number of men 

 invade certain parts of the British Isles in order to obtain clutches 

 of the eggs of our rarer nesting species. These eggs, destined 

 either for the collection of the raider or for sale or exchange, 

 are taken in defiance of the law, sometimes by men who have 

 travelled long distances at great expense for the express purpose, 

 sometimes by poor local shepherds, to whom half-a-guinea is 

 an irresistible temptation. In neither case does the risk of a 

 small fine act as the slightest deterrent ; while the rarer the bird 

 has become the greater is the value set upon a British-taken 

 clutch of its eggs and the fiercer the competition to acquire 

 specimens before the extinction of the bird as a nesting species. 



Protection of eggs is not mentioned in the Act of 1880 ; it 

 was not till the Act of 1894 that the present law on the subject 

 came into existence. It provided that a Secretary of State 

 may, after the passing of the Act,* upon application by a County 

 Council, make an Order prohibiting — 



(1) The taking or destroying of any wild birds' eggs in 

 any year or years, in any place or places within the county ; 



* i.e., after the 20th July, 1894. 



