92 
THE 
PROTECTION OF WILD LIFE IN YORKSHIRE. 
R. FORTUNE, F.Z.S. 
(Continued from page 59). 
I do not know whether I have given sufficient credit to our 
Yorkshire Wild Birds’ and Eggs Protection Committee or not, 
but they have performed very efficient service in obtaining 
increased protection for our birds, and will do more in the 
future. By employing keepers in certain localities they 
ensure the safety of a number of our rarer birds, especially 
at Hornsea Mere and Spurn. Mr. St. Quintin, the President 
of the Committee, is indefatigable in his endeavours in this 
direction. He has just had, at his own cost, bird perches 
erected round the lighthouse at Spurn Point, which by enabling 
the birds te rest upon them when attracted by the light, will 
save many thousands of their lives. I regret that owing to 
Spurn now being a military area, it is impossible to show you 
a photograph of this contrivance, which is very popular and 
effective in Holland. 
There is in existence at the present time, though its activities 
are at present suspended owing to the war, a commission to 
deal with the Bird Protection Acts. We were asked to give 
evidence, and Mr. St. Quintin and I formulated certain recom- 
mendations, which briefly are that all birds shall be protected, 
but that power shall be given to the county authorities to 
withdraw protection, for a time, from any species which per- 
haps, owing to its becoming too numerous is consequently 
harmful upon the advice of a small permanent committee 
of naturalists and horticulturists elected for that purpose and 
that lists only of those not protected be issued. 
Egg collecting I would prohibit altogether, for when all is 
said that can be said in its favour, we cannot get away from 
the fact that it serves little useful purpose, but is often simply 
a collecting mania which might equally as well be expended 
upon stamps or parcel post labels. 
I will now briefly draw attention to those mammals and 
birds which have become extinct in our county, to those whose 
numbers are becoming scarcer year by year, and to those which 
have increased, and to some general remarks in connection 
with our vertebrate fauna. I do not propose to go so far back 
as the days of the Cave Lion, Mammoth, Rhinoceros or Hippo- 
potamus, nor even to a much later date when probably the 
Brown Bear, Wild Boar and Wolf, roamed over the county. 
Within quite recent times the Red Deer ranged wild over our 
broad acres, inhabiting the moorlands and fells as well as the 
forest lands. No doubt, too, the Fallow Deer, though probably 
of comparatively recent introduction, roamed in a wild state 
Naturalist, 
