APRIL 103 



islands. But that is not enough. Owing to the migra- 

 tory habits of nearly all birds, they have to run the 

 gauntlet of alert European chasseurs before they reach 

 the comparative sanctuary of a land where nothing but 

 what Frenchmen term gibier strieux are deemed worthy 

 of powder and shot. The regulations fall short of perfec- 

 tion even in this country ; but the acts for the protection 

 of wild birds other than game, passed in 1880, 1881, 

 1894, and 1896, have been long enough in force to 

 afford some idea of their efficacy and general effect. 

 This novel class of legislation was the outcome of a 

 variety of circumstances. The improvement and in- 

 creasing use of firearms, the strictness of game preser- 

 vation, the zeal for natural history which takes the 

 form of collecting specimens both of birds and their 

 eggs and last but not least, the encroachment of human 

 population and industry on the haunts of wild-fowl, 

 had rendered certain interesting species of birds exceed- 

 ingly rare, and threatened the complete extinction of 

 some of them. The great auk had disappeared for ever, 

 not only from the British list, but from the face of the 

 globe. Timely legislation might have saved the race 

 when, during the first half of this century, a few pairs 

 still lingered round the islands of St. Kilda and Papa 

 Westra, and when, as Audubon records, thousands of 

 nestlings were cut up annually for bait by the New- 

 foundland fishermen ; but it did not occur to anybody 

 to interfere, and the great auk the great awkward, as 

 it might have been fitly named will never be seen 

 again. 



