236 PROTECTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



In whatever way this widespread custom may have originated, 

 its effects, so far as Lady-birds are concerned, can be none 

 but good, for the Greenfly and Scale-insect pests of our 

 gardens have no more persistent nor voracious enemies 

 than the innocent Lady-bird and its children. 



ANIMAL SANCTUARIES 



This account of the workings of popular favour on behalf 

 of animals would be incomplete were no reference made to 

 a development of recent date which promises to do much 

 for the preservation of native faunas the establishment of 

 animal sanctuaries. 



It is true that animal sanctuaries have been in existence 

 in Britain for long centuries, for in 1125 Malmesbury drew 

 a doleful picture of the New Forest, created by William the 

 Conqueror, as a place appropriated, from the use of man, for 

 the nurture and refuge of wild beasts. The protected areas 

 of the royal and ancient "forests" of Scotland, too, must have 

 done something for the preservation of wild life, as indeed 

 still do the wild deer-forests of to-day. Bu't in such cases, 

 sport is the object in view, and the protection of any but a 

 few creatures is no more than an associated accident. That 

 areas should be set aside for the sake of the animals them- 

 selves is a development of a newly awakened love of 

 nature. 



The foremost examples of modern animal reserves are 

 the Yellowstone Park and Mount Rainier National Park, 

 which, with other great reserves in the United States, cover 

 an area of more than 70,000 square miles, and wherein 

 representative sections of the wild life of North America 

 have been gathered together in security, free from all outside 

 interference, for the benefit of present and future genera- 

 tions. 



In our own country the formation of such sanctuaries 

 was encouraged by the Wild Birds' Protection Act of 1896, 

 and since that time, thanks especially to the efforts of the 

 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, many small areas 

 in Britain have been set aside and carefully guarded so that 

 within them birds of the rarer kinds may nest and multiply 

 in safety. One of the most interesting of Scottish sanctuaries, 



