Protection Acts in Great Britain and Ireland. 595 



tioii was appointed to consider the possibility of establishing 

 a close time for indigenous animals. Canon Tristram was the 

 first Chairman, and Mr. Dresser the Secretary, the other mem- 

 bers being Mr. Tegetmeier and the late Mr. Frank BucHand. 



About the same time a local association had been started 

 in Yorkshire to protect the Gulls and rock-haunting birds 

 which were being killed wholesale while breeding on the 

 cliffs. One man boasted to Mr. Cordeaux, who wrote on the 

 subject in the " Zoologist," that he had in one year killed 

 with his own gun 4000 Kittiwakes at Mamborough. On the 

 initiative of this Society a Bill, destined to become the first of 

 a long series of protection Acts (32 and 33 Yic, cap. 17), " An 

 Act for the Preservation of Sea Birds," was in 1869 intro- 

 duced in the House of Commons by Mr. Christopher Sykes, 

 the Member for the East Riding. 



The Bill, which was considerably altered in its passage 

 through the House of Lords, was, Professor Newton informs 

 me, drafted by Mr. Barnes, Rector of Bridlington, and 

 Commander Knocker, then serving* in the Coastguard in the 

 neighbourhood. The names of these pioneers, good men and 

 true, should not be forgotten. 



The Act gave a list of some 33 names, many of them 

 synonymous, which, with the exception of " young birds unable 

 to fly," were protected from the 1st April to the 1st August. 

 Thé penalty attached to a breach of the law was £1 for each 

 offence ; and offenders, under a further penalty of £2 with 

 costs, were required, when called upon to do so, to give correct 

 names and addresses, a wise pro vision repeated in later Acts. 



The exception of young birds was made to meet the 

 objection that in many parts young Seafowl were still a 

 valued and common article of food among the poorer classes. 1 

 This provision was not renewed when the Act of 1869 was 

 repealed in 1880. 



The Act of 1869 proved a success, and in the opinion of 

 those most competent to judge, was the means of saving from 

 extinction more than one of the great breeding colonies. 



The protection of sea birds had been advocated chiefly on the 



1 In old days it is scarcely necessary to say that young Seafowl were highly 

 esteemed delicacies. The rent paid to the Abbot of Tavistock for the Scilly Isles 

 in the 14th Century was " CGC Volucre vocat Puffins vol. VI.s. VHI.d." 



