428 
the Empire requires. It may be, and we are in- 
clined to think that it is, necesary that the external 
degree should be continued and maintained. It 
ought to be easy to devise a machinery for doing 
this that is not inconsistent and incompatible with 
the ideals laid down by the Commissioners. 
All those concerned in the work of higher edu- 
cation in London—and, indeed, in the country 
generally—should combine to help in this scheme. 
There must be give and take. The incorporation 
principle already adopted by University and King’s 
Colleges was in itself a surrender of autonomy, 
and other institutons must be prepared to make 
similar sacrifices if the University is to be a reality. 
The Minister puts this point well when he says, 
“Some acquiescence or even sacrifice on individual 
points will be necessary for all concerned if a 
scheme worth-having is to be carried out.” 
THE PLUMAGE BILL, 
N the great question of fauna preservation the 
newspaper-reading public is at present occu- 
pied with the section concerning birds. It is 
announced by the Royal Society for the Protection 
of Birds that Mr. Hobhouse will, when Parliament 
reassembles, bring forward a Bill for restricting 
the import of plumage into the United Kingdom, 
and that this Bill will be backed by the President 
of the Board of Trade and the Under Secretary for 
India. In its monthly journal, the aforesaid 
society publishes what purports to be the text 
of this Bill. It is a very mildly worded measure 
which will not satisfy root-and-branch reformers, 
for it exempts from supervision personal clothing 
worn or imported by individuals entering this 
country from abroad. Consequently—unless I 
totally misunderstand the drift of the Bill— 
worded, like all Bills, with as much legal obscurity 
as possible—a woman resolved to have head- 
dresses and robes of forbidden plumage has only 
to purchase such abroad and stick it into her 
apparel or her hat, and she passes our Customs 
houses unchallenged. If my reading is correct, 
then the results of this Bill will be very slight in 
stopping the destruction of rare and beautiful 
wild birds in the British dominions and_ the 
colonial empires of France and Holland. But I 
agree with the R.S.P.B. in welcoming any legisla- 
tion rather than none, as the thin end of the 
wedge. We must remember that the first anti- 
slave trade measure (fought and delayed for many 
years by spiritual ancestors of the type of plumage- 
trading firms) was a poor and ineffective thing. 
But as soon as its justification was grasped by the 
public it was reinforced by much more drastic 
legislation. 
Mr. James Buckland is quite right to direct 
attention in vigorous language to the disgraceful 
amount .of beautiful-bird destruction which is 
going on in Nipal. This quasi-independent 
Himalayan State has—unhappily—been placed by 
fate in charge of the most interesting faunistic 
region of Asia, a country not many years ago 
famous for the variety and superb beauty of its 
NO. 2302, VOL. 92} 
NATURE 
| to man or man’s interests be killed, except where 
| harmless bird life, notably its pheasants. 
[DECEMBER II, 1913 
Origin- 
ally the Nipalese respected almost religiously the 
fauna of their native land, like most Indian — 
peoples. But of late they have become infected 
with a truly British love of life-destruction. They — 
are incited to this by the agents of the plumage 
trade at Calcutta and other places, and, of course, __ 
find it a lucrative business. As in all things but 
foreign relations we acknowledge the state of 
Nipal to be an absolutely independent kingdom, it — Boa 
is permitted to import and export goods through ~ 
British India under its own Customs’ seals, intact 
and unquestioned. 
Consequently, though the laws of British India 
forbid on paper the export of wild birds’ plumes 
or skins, the State of Nipal monthly exports from 
Calcutta to the feather markets of the world— 
principally London—thousands of bird skins. The 
Nipalese have nearly exterminated the Monal 
pheasant, the Tragopan, and several other gal- 
linaceous marvels. The few people who know and 
protest on this side are told that Nipal is an inde- 
pendent state and cannot be coerced. But there is 
no need for coercion. We regulate with Nipal the 
arms traffic and the opium traffic, and we can 
easily add to the list of prohibited traffics that in 
the plumage of rare birds or the skins and trophies 
of rare mammals. The Nipalese Government, 
after all, is civilised and can easily be brought to 
understand that we make our request in the in- 
terests of Nipal itself. We have many ways of 
obliging and disobliging Nipal without resort- 
ing to “coercion” in what is really—rightly 
viewed—a matter of religion. 
But of course the weakness of our case and 
cause is that the present Cabinet—and past 
Cabinets—and all our Government departments 
care little or nothing about fauna preservation. 
They, owing to the faulty education of their 
component personalities in the preceding century, 
are unable to view the question from its esthetic 
as well as its economic point of view. Conse- 
quently few of our London-governed colonies have 
adequate bird-preservation regulations; while the 
whole attitude of British India and Burma towards 
its wonderful and fast-disappearing fauna is one 
of the scandals of the age. If it were not that the 
Native States of the Indian Empire have and 
enforce, so far as they dare, game preservation 
and bird preservation laws, the Indian peninsula 
would be now almost lacking in all the more note- 
worthy types of wild bird and beast. The game 
regulations drafted by the Viceroy-in-Council for 
British India were published last year by our own 
Zoological Society, and forthwith so laughed at 
for their inadequacy and old-fashioned “game- 
preserving ” character, that they seemingly found 
their way into the waste-paper basket. At any 
rate, no far-reaching regulations for fauna pre- 
servation have since been published and put in 
force. 
Let scientific men take a broad and lofty view 
of this question of fauna preservation. Why 
should any beasts or birds not actively harmful 
