6 The Proposed New Bill for the Protection of Wild Birds


which was directed towards the absolute protection of the nests, eggs,

young, and adults of certain species scheduled as useful to agriculture,

was thoroughly discussed, and the reason for the non-adherence thereto

of the British Government carefully inquired into. The articles of the

Convention were critically examined and, subject to the clearing up of

some obscure points and to the adoption of a few suggested

modifications, it was decided to recommend that the Convention should

be adopted by His Majesty’s Government, and that the necessary

amendments in the law should be incorporated in the new Act outlined

in the committee’s report.


The birds scheduled in the French lists as useful and protected,

noxious and unprotected, compare very curiously with ours in some

respects, and show how circumstances may alter cases. One suspects,

indeed, that with our neighbours the utilitarian prevails over the artistic

rather more than it does with us. All the true birds of prey, including

the Osprey and the Kite, which we prize so highly, are in the noxious

list. So, too, are the Bittern, the Divers, and the Raven. Obvious

differences of opinion on the subject of useful birds also hold on the

two sides of the Channel. For example, the Little Owls and all the

Tits, including the Blue, are protected on the Continent, the Blue Tit

presumably in accordance with the view, formerly prevalent with us,

that its insectivorous diet places it amongst a nation’s valuable assets.

It is necessary to bear in mind, however, that a bird’s habits may vary

with its station, or change from time to time according to circumstances

—a fact sometimes lost sight of by those who maintain that the fresh

inquiry held by the Departmental Committee into the food and mode

of life of our wild birds was merely waste of time, seeing that the whole

question was, it is claimed, thoroughly investigated and settled once

and for all when the original bill for protection was passed some half-

century ago.


A natural sequence to the consideration of the French Con¬

vention was the recommendation that the policy by v r hich the

British Government had in certain cases refrained in the past

from taking part officially in international conferences on the

subject of bird protection should be reversed, and that this country

should for the future be represented officially at such conferences,



