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Extracts from the Essay by 



Lt.-Colonel MOMBER, 



Winner of the Second Prize in the Gold Medal Essay 

 Competition, 1908. 



The need of Bird Protection is an inevitable sequel to in- 

 creasing population. In wild nature, the balance of necessary 

 and superfluous takes good care of itself. But when a country 

 becomes populated its features alter ; and the felled forest, 

 the drained marsh, the cultivated land are only the beginning 

 of the change worked by man upon fauna and flora. Agricul- 

 ture and pasturage further certain kinds of insect and plant 

 life, whilst hindering others, with an immediate effect on the 

 birds dependent on them, since, in general, the numbers of birds 

 of each species are proportionate to the supply of the particular 

 food the species depends upon for subsistence. 



Perhaps no class of statutes is harder to enforce than that 

 relating to wild creatures and plants. When person and property 

 are offended against, when there is assault or fraud or theft, 

 the injured individual and his house do their utmost to further 

 the conviction of the offender. In the more serious crimes all 

 society bands itself against the culprit, and everyone has a 

 personal interest in helping the law to punish. But the stake 

 in Nature, which is every man's birthright, must be made clear 

 to him before he will trouble himself to defend it. 



The haunts of birds are not the haunts of the police, nor 

 much affected by the public. The public is indifferent, and dis- 

 inclined to go to pains to institute proceedings against the mis- 

 doings it may witness. The great majority of offences is 

 unwitnessed ; the victims lay no information ; and only 

 afterwards the silent groves and desecrated banks chant a mute 

 threnody to the ornaments they have lost. It is for this reason 

 that the people require to be told, and often retold, what are the 

 claims of birds on man, and why most birds require to be jealously 

 guarded against persecution, whether thoughtless or rapacious 

 or malicious. 



Wild birds should be everywhere, as they are under the Audubon 

 Societies' laws, the property of the State ; an asset and a benefit 

 in which every citizen may share, and to help in preserving which 

 benefit every citizen should be taught and encouraged. For, 

 indispensible as are laws of protection, they can only be effective 

 if the public itself co-operates to carry them out. 



