WILD BIRD PROTECTION. 19 



absolute protection, these birds being summer mi- 

 grants, arriving after the close season has com- 

 menced and leaving us again in several cases before 

 the close season ends. 



Many may ask, however, why such harmless 

 and useful birds as the Flycatchers, the Robin, the 

 Redstart, Blackstart, and other Warblers, the Wren, 

 Nuthatch, Tree-creeper, Goldcrest, the Water Rail, 

 and other Crakes, the Wagtails, and the whole of 

 the Swallow tribe and the Swift have been omitted 

 from the Schedule to this Act. 



But this defect has now, however, been met b}^ 

 the powers given to County Councils by subse- 

 quent Acts as we shall see later on. 



The next piece of legislation taken up by Parlia- 

 ment on behalf of our wild birds was the " Sand- 

 grouse Protection Act" (51 & 52 Yict. c. 55) which 

 came into operation on the 1st February, 1889, for 

 the absolute protection of Pallas's Sandgrouse in 

 the United Kingdom for three years, in order, as 

 stated in the Act, " that it may become acclimatised." 



This law (although it came too late to have much, 

 if any, practical effect on the Sandgrouse which 

 visited this country in such numbers in 1888, as most 

 of them had been shot down before the Act came 

 into operation), was still a most valuable precedent 



