November i6, 1893] 



NATURE 



55 



tive that the old birds should have protection at the 

 breeding season. 



To take the second case we have cited, that of the 

 Goldfinch, the details are not the same, though the final 

 result be so. Until some fifteen or twenty years ago 

 the diminution in the numbers of this species was 

 notorious ; but the reasons of that diminution are easily 

 revealed to any enquirer, though it may be hard to say 

 which of them be the stronger. The practice of netting 

 in spring time, now illegal though probably still used in 

 some places, was carried on to an extent that if it were 

 not supported by the clearest evidence people would 

 hardly believe. Combined with this disastrous practice 

 was the fact that so much heath and common land had 

 been brought under the plough, and the mode of agricul- 

 ture so much improved, as sensibly to affect the Goldfinch's 

 supply of food, for its fare was truthfully termed by the 

 poet " the thistle's downy seed,' combined however with 

 that of other weeds hated by good farmers. But no doubt, 

 at the hands of the bird-catchers, the Goldfinch. being so 

 great a favourite for the cage, still suffers severely, and it 

 may be true that enough do not leave this country at 

 close of summer to satisfy the waste of life that occurs 

 during its migration and in its winter-quarters ; though 

 as to any considerable diminution in its numbers being 

 caused by birdsnesting, the notion of such a thing will 

 be scouted by all who have had opportunities of observing 

 its breeding-habits. Our third instance, the Skylark, is 

 without doubt one of those birds that needs protection 

 least. Nobody persecutes him so soon as he ceases to 

 fiock and settles with his mate in their chosen spot. 

 Their nest in the growing corn, or the wide pasture, is 

 safe from even the predatory rat, and the open country 

 they haunt is no place for the Sparrow-hawk, that deadly 

 foe to so many small birds. There, in the course of the 

 season, they make their three or four nests, and rear in 

 each as many young, so that the annual increase of the 

 species may be safely computed as five-fold, and when 

 we also consider that thousands if not tens of thousands 

 arrive every autumn on our shores and spread over the 

 whole country, with a safe conscience the most devoted 

 lover of birds may, if he has a mind to it, eat lark- 

 pudding in winter without compunction. 



We have cited these three cases — the Skylark, 

 the Goldfinch, and the Nightingale, because we have 

 them so frequently put forward by sentimentalists as 

 birds that all right-minded people would wish to see more 

 numerous. We should like to count ourselves among 

 the right-minded, but the sentimentalists must forgive us 

 for refusing to believe that the number can be increased 

 in the way they advocate — visiting with punishment the 

 schoolboys who would take the nests of any one of them. 

 Far otherwise, however, is it with many birds of which 

 the enthusiasts never think. Those, for instance, 

 that habitually breed in places open to all comers, and 

 especially on islands near our coast, on the sea shore, and 

 by the side of inland but navigable waters. In such places 

 there is no law of trespass ; and, as all who have been at 

 the pains to inform themselves know, these birds suffer 

 from the way their exposed nests are ravaged, and are 

 surely decreasing in number. Yet by the general public 

 they are little heeded, chiefly because the general public 

 knows nothing about them — not even their names — and 

 moreover encourages the ravages by blindly buying the 

 booty of the ravagers. Thus it is that many a beach, and 

 many a heath, and many a marsh and mere, is made 

 desolate, for the ravage is continued throughout the whole 

 of the breeding-season, with the result that scarcely an 

 egg is left from which a young bird — be it Duck or Gull, 

 Tern or Plover can be hatched. Yet it is obvious that 

 it would not be so very difficult to stop this destruction, 

 and that without interfering with the long-established 

 practice, which we hold to be no more detrimental to 

 their species than it is illegitimate, of taking toll of their 



NO. 1255. VOL. 49] 



eggs. Pick out the places at which the practice is carried 

 on, and limit the time during which the eggs may there be 

 lawfully gathered, so as to give each pair of birds the 

 opportunity of bringing off their brood. 



Early in the present Session a " Bill to amend the Wild 

 Birds' Protection Act, 1880,'' was brought into the House 

 of Commons by Sir Herbert Maxwell, which Bill, owing 

 to the well-deserved popularity of its introducer, ran its 

 course unchallenged, and achieved the almost unexampled 

 success of being read a third time and passed with 

 scarcely an alteration of importance. The scope of the 

 Bill was to enable any County Council to prohibit "the 

 taking or destroying of any species of wild bird or the 

 eggs of any species of wild bird." This Bill, of course, 

 attracted the attention of the Committee which had been 

 appointed the year before by the British Association " to 

 consider proposals for the Legislative Protection of Wild 

 Birds' Eggs," and in the opinion of that Committee, as 

 subsequently reported at the late meeting of the Associa- 

 tion at Nottingham, the Bill was declared to have been 

 framed on a mistaken principle " in that it sought to effect 

 the desired object by empowering local authorities to 

 name the species,' the eggs of which were to be protected, 

 thus requiring in every case of prosecution proof of 

 identity, which in the majority of cases would be difficult, 

 if not impossible to supply." 



The House of Lords at first took almost precisely the 

 same view as the British Association Committee ; and, 

 chiefly at the instance of Lord Walsingham, than whom 

 there could scarcely be a more competent peer, amended 

 the Bill accordingly, producing what would, in the 

 opinion of many experts, be a very workable measure. 

 But unhappily in the subsequent process of passing the 

 Standing Committee of the Upper House, their lordships 

 were induced, by those who were not experts, to go a great 

 deal further, and nobody acquainted with the facts of the 

 questions involved, can doubt that on this occasion the 

 efficacy of the Bill was not a little damaged in various 

 ways. ' In this condition it in due course returned to the 

 House of Commons, where the British Association Com- 

 mittee, as stated in their report, hoped it would, in spite 

 of its transformation, still find favour; but its original 

 parent, Sir Herbert Maxwell, would have none of it, and 

 consideration of the Lords' Amendments having been 

 adjourned on August 21 for three months, it stands by 

 the accidental prolongation of the Session, for further 

 discussion in a few days. In the meanwhile the British 

 Association Committee has been reconstituted and 

 strengthened by the substitution of several ornithologists 

 of repute in place of some naturalists who had never paid 

 any special attention to the matter, while Sir John 

 Lubbock has accepted the post of chairman, and Mr. 

 Dresser, who was for many years Secretary to the Old 

 "Close-Time" Committee of the Association that 

 effected so much good, undertakes the same duty in the 

 new body, the other members of which are Mr. Cordeaux, 

 Mr. W\ H. Hudson, Prof. Newton, Mr. Howard 

 Saunders, Mr. T. H. Thomas, Canon Tristram, and Dr. 

 V'achell. With a chairman at once so conciliatory and so 

 influential, and a secretary of so much experience, it may 

 be hoped that the difficulties, great as they are— for they 

 involve a contest between the two Houses of Parliament 

 — will not prove insuperable, and that some way may be 

 found of saving this Bill, for all will admit that if it be 

 not passed this Session a long while may elapse ere a 

 House of Commons is good-humoured enough to let a 

 measure of the kind slip through its entanglements, as 

 did that of Sir Herbert Maxwell at the beginning of this 

 year. This is surely a case where sentiment should yield 

 to common sense. 



1 It may be remarked that the Bill was so carelessly worded as to leave it 

 open to duubt, though this was certainly not the intention of its supporters, 

 whether a Couniy Council could by one act make it apply to all Wild Birds, 

 or only to some that should be named. 



