24 



birds killed or taken under such circumstances. By Article 6 

 of the Paris Convention or under a law such as that of S\vitzer- 

 land specimens so obtained cannot be sold. Perhaps one day 

 Sect. 3 of our Act of 1880 will be amended by adding a similar 

 proviso. It may well be urged that an owner who abuses his 

 rights in connection with the birds on his property is not likely 

 to properly protect the eggs ; but as far as Holland is concerned, 

 and also in Norway, the principle of recognising rights in an 

 owner over the eggs on his land seems in practice to work well. 



TO SPECIAL AREAS. 



The formation of protected areas or sanctuaries in this 

 country was initiated by the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1896, 

 introduced by Lord Jersey.* Before the passing of this Act 

 very beneficial results had followed various private efforts to 

 protect birds in certain districts in the breeding season ; the 

 Fame Islands may be mentioned as an instance. The new Act 

 extended the powers of a Secretary of State under the Act of 

 1880, enabhng him by Order to prohibit the taking or killing 

 of all wild birds in particular places. It also extended to 

 Councils of County Boroughs the powers already given by the 

 Act of 1894 to County Councils. Lord Jersey's Act, however, 

 does not apply to Ireland. f 



Neither the Convention of Paris nor the Model American La\^- 

 suggest the formation of sanctuaries ; as we have seen, they 

 respectively advocate absolute protection to the species deemed 

 useful to agriculture or to those not included in the category of 

 game. The idea of estabHshing such areas does not appear 

 to appeal strongly to continental nations. In the United States, 

 however, the famous Yellowstone Park and the Mount Rainier 

 National Park form examples of the finest sanctuaries which 

 legislation has anywhere established, J and there are in the States 

 ten other such parks, covering with the two named an area of 

 upwards of 70,000 square miles.§ No doubt the establishment 

 of sanctuaries of such size is a splendid tiling in a country in 

 which wide tracts of mid uninhabited land exist ; but even in 

 our ouTi densely crowded land much good work has been done 

 on a modest scale during the nesting season, especially in the 

 eastern counties. It is remarkable, however, that the splendid 



* 59 & 60 Vict.. Chap. 56. f Sect. 6. 



I Yellowstone Park is governed by an Act approved on 7th Maj'', 1894 

 (28 Statutes at Large, pp. 73-75), and Mount Rainier Park by an Act 

 approved on 2nd March, 1899 (30 Statutes at Large, pp. 993-995). 



§ Palmer, op. cit., p. 70, n. 



