6o 



THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 



This question of protection is now so confusing that it may 

 with safety be said that the sportsman is hardly likely to 

 encounter anything more involved. Moreover, it is evident, I am 

 sorry to say, that personal interest has been introduced in the 

 framing of the bye-laws for the supposed better protection of 

 birds, in some cases the main idea being to deprive sportsmen 

 of many of the privileges hitherto enjoyed, or to curtail them. 

 It is a thousand pities that such a state of affairs should exist, 

 and, without doubt, I state that, unless steps are speedily 

 taken to annul the progress of anti-cruelty faddists, we shall 

 soon be in a state of deadlock. So confusing are the details 

 of even well-meaning wild bird orders that it will ere long be 

 found necessary to state something more general and dispense 

 with local ideas altogether. Below, however, is a list of pro- 

 tected wild birds which is official. No attempt is made to give 

 the varying local names of the species : — 



