GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 237 



(p. 263), that eight freshly arrived birds had been killed 

 and sent " for ladies' plumes " to a bird stuffer in 

 Norwich ; and to the same journal for 1869 (p. 1490), he 

 also contributed a note to the effect that at a coot 

 shooting party on Hickling Broad on the 10th April, 

 1868, "no less than nine splendid specimens of this 

 grebe, only just returned from the coast to their summer 

 quarters, were ruthlessly slaughtered, and of course 

 subsequently made into " plumes." 



The destruction immediately before or during the 

 breeding season, to which this species was subjected, as 

 shown by the instances just cited and many others 

 could be found was stopped by the Act of Parliament 

 already mentioned.* This measure seems first to have 

 brought the perilous state of things to the notice of the 

 indifferent or the ignorant ; and, public attention being 

 aroused, it was followed in 1872, 1876, and 1880 by other 

 Acts, which, if not all that could be wished, have 

 certainly saved to the British Fauna several species 

 of birds that were more or less threatened with exter- 

 mination, and have subsequently been the means of 

 allowing some of them, as before stated with regard 

 to the gadwall, pochard, and tufted duck (pp. 162, 

 204, and 214), to increase beyond expectation. But 

 in attaining this end, so agreeable to all naturalists, 

 the willingness to carry out the provisions of those Acts 



* In this connection it may not be inappropriate to mention 

 that it was at the Norwich Meeting of the British Association, in 

 1868, in a paper read by Professor Newton " On the Zoological 

 Aspect of Game Laws," that scientific attention was originally drawn 

 in a practical form to the destruction of our birds generally, and at 

 that meeting what was afterwards known as the " Close Time Com- 

 mittee" was first appointed. The good work which this committee 

 did in after years, and especially at the time the Sea Birds Pro- 

 tection Bill was going through Parliament, none can doubt. The 

 committee took an immense deal of trouble about the matter, 

 and was able by authority of the information it collected to modify 

 the very extravagant demands of the ultra sentimentalists from 

 whom there was at all times great danger to be feared, for their 

 action, if uncontrolled, would have been almost worse than that of 

 the destructionists, as they were ready to perpetrate almost any 

 absurdity, regardless of consequences, and such an Act as they 

 wanted would, from its stringency, have been disregarded at 

 once, or, if enforced, very speedily repealed. 



