Protection Acts in Great Britain and Ireland. 597 



The Owls were strongly supported, a motion to strike 

 them out having been defeated by a majority of 14 against 4* 

 The Thrush was rejected by a vote of 9 against 6. 



It is interesting, as an illustration of the difficulty in 

 foreseeing what may be the practical effect of any legislation, 

 and the need for caution in such matters, to read that in 

 some parts at least the Act defeated its own object. Market 

 gardeners and others who, so long as their hands were free, 

 had been tolerant of bird depredations, when they fomid 

 themselves no longer at liberty to shoot at will during the 

 fruit season, paid boys to take every nest they could find. 



"I believe," said Canon Tristram, in his evidence before 

 the Select Committee of 1873, "that the birds have practi- 

 cally, in market garden neighbourhoods, suffered owing to 

 this supposed protection, because it is in advance of the 

 public opinion of the class affected by it." 



In spite of the labour spent upon it, the House of Commons 

 was not satisfied with the Act of 1872, and within a year of 

 its passing another Select Committee was appointed, this 

 time with power to take evidence "to enquire into the 

 advisability of extending the protection of a close season to 

 certain wild birds not included in the Wild Birds Preservation 

 Act of 1872." Mr. Auberon Herbert was chairman. 



The interesting but conflicting evidence given by 

 naturalists, farmers, gardeners, and the much abused but 

 interesting bird catchers, will repay study. But the length 

 of papers being wisely limited, all that can be done here is to 

 state the conclusions at which the Committee arrived. They 

 recommended that all birds not already protected should be 

 protected between the 15th March and the 1st August, but 

 that power should be reserved to owners or occupiers, either 

 themselves or by deputies, to destroy birds on the lands 

 owned or occupied by them ; that a Secretary of State 

 should have power to make exceptions from the Act of 1872, 

 as well as from the proposed new Act ; that c ' for the sake 

 of giving better protection to swimmers and waders," it 

 should be illegal during the close season to sell any bird 

 mentioned in "The Seafowl Preservation Act," or "The 

 Wild Birds Protection Act of 1872," whether taken in the 

 country or said to be imported " f rom any other country"; 



