APRIL 111 



young, true to that hereditary attachment to polar 

 regions which seems to indicate in them the cradle of 

 all organic life. 



Migration may not prevail much longer to preserve 

 the lapwing. The utmost limits of the Highlands are 

 ransacked for eggs. Mr. Harvie Brown mentions one 

 village in Banffshire in which a small tradesman passed 

 1680 eggs to London in the spring of 1893. If the trade 

 in the birds themselves extends in like manner, goodbye 

 to our pretty peewits. It is vain to point to the large 

 flocks of these plover which move to and fro over the 

 continent of Europe, and still frequent our shores at 

 all seasons. Numbers are no guarantee against exter- 

 mination witness the bison of North America and 

 the incredible herds of big game which, within living 

 memory, peopled the plains of Natal and the Transvaal. 

 The fate that has overtaken the bison and the quagga 

 impends over the familiar peewit. 



I have observed that most of the recommendations 

 of the Paris Conference about the protection of birds 

 have been carried out under statute in this country; 

 but there remains one in regard to which action has 

 not yet been taken. Birds are subjects of no state; 

 they observe no political landmarks or frontiers, but 

 move with the seasons from realm to realm. Hence 

 measures taken for their protection, to be effective, must 

 partake of an international character. The Conference 

 invited the British Government to prohibit the importa- 

 tion of birds killed in countries which had decreed 

 their protection. The lapwing is a case in point. Mil- 



