150 SECTION A. GENERAL ZOOLOGY. 



the migratory habits of nearly every species of bird, if it is to 

 be effective, must be international. I have mentioned the lapwing 

 as an example of a useful bird. It is indefatigable in devouring 

 grubs, molluscs and insects which, if unmolested, would make very 

 short work of our crops. We reward it by gathering every egg we 

 can lay our fingers on, and, as if that were not enough, the practice 

 of shooting and eating green plovers is increasing rapidly. It is 

 the only zc/M bird of which we in Great Britain both kill the 

 parents and take the eggs for food. Really, if lapwings were 

 hurtful vermin, instead of a beautiful graceful bird and a valuable 

 agricultural police, we could hardly have devised surer means for 

 its extinction. 



Now do not understand me to advocate prohibition of taking 

 plovers' eggs. Far from it. They are a palatable and nutritious 

 diet, and their collection creates quite a valuable little industry in 

 rural districts. But I do say that if it is desirable (and every farmer 

 knows that it is desirable) to keep a good stock of lapwings in our 

 land, County Councils ought to put in effect the powers with 

 which they have been invested, and absolutely prohibit the killing 

 of these birds between ist February and ist October. 



In addition to this, I think measures should be taken to prohibit 

 the importation of species protected in other countries during the 

 months of close time in those countries — and this in our own 

 interests. The lapwing is a good case in point, because it is fairly 

 numerous at all seasons in most parts of these islands. Most 

 people, those I mean who have made no particular study of birds 

 and their ways, assume, because they see lapwings on our coast 

 or in our fields at all seasons, that the lapwings they see there 

 in December are the same that were bred there in May. I need not 

 detain you by showing that such a belief is quite erroneous : you 

 know it as well as I do ; but I may borrow from Mr Abel Chapman 

 an illustration to show how erroneous it is. Take the map of 

 Europe : during spring and summer the lapwing population occu- 

 pies a position somewhat approaching to this : — 



As winter draws near the whole body of lapwings moves south- 

 ward, and not a single pewit is to be found in these islands north of a 

 line drawn across the county of Caithness. Hence, although there 

 are lapwings all the year round in any given spot in the British 

 Isles south of that line — say at Cambridge — the birds that feed 

 there in winter were bred far away to the north, and those that 

 were bred at Cambridge are away in the south of Europe. Hence 

 it is clear that if lapwings are to be protected effectively it must be 

 done by international concert. If we in Great Britain destroy all 

 the eggs in spring, we are diminishing the winter stock to the south 

 of our latitude : if we shoot and net indiscriminately during winter, 

 we are diminishing the spring and summer stock to the north of 

 our latitude. Lying as we do in the mean centre of the annual 

 migration, we may perhaps be the last to suffer diminution our- 



