Protection Acts in Great Britain and Ireland. 599 



Birds," is the Magna Charta of British Birds, and, with 

 modifications in minor j>articulars by later Acts, still stands 

 as the basis on which the protection of wild birds during 

 the nesting season, or throughout the year, rests. 



It repealed the earlier Acts, those of 1867, 1872, and 1876, 

 and, in accordance with the recommendations of the Select 

 Committee of 1873, fixed a close time for all birds from the 

 1st March to the 1st August, with a fine for breaches of the 

 law of One pound (£1) in the case of some 80 favoured birds, 

 and lesser penalties (a reprimand with costs for a first 

 offence, and a 5s. fine for a later offence) in the case of other 

 unscheduled birds. 



. It was also made illegal to expose the birds for sale after 

 the first fortnight of the close season unless it could be shown 

 that they had not been illegally obtained. 



The objections of market gardeners and farmers which, as 

 already stated, had brought discredit on the Act of 1872, was 

 to some extent met by a provision empowering owners or occu- 

 piers, either themselves or by deputies, to kill, on lands owned 

 or occupied by them, birds not included in the Schedule. 



A Secretary of State in Great Britain and the Lord Lieu- 

 tenant in Ireland might on application from Justices in 

 Quarter Session vary the close season in any locality ; but, 

 curiously enough, it was not until fourteen years later that 

 power was granted (57 and 58 Vic, cap. 24) to make 

 alterations of any kind in the Schedule list of birds protected. 



The following year another short Act (44 and 45 Vic, cap. 

 51) was passed, explaining a point of detail in the Act of 

 1880, on which some doubts had arisen, and adding " Larks " 

 in the somewhat confused Schedule. 



It was not until ten years later that the general question 

 of the protection of birds was again before Parliament. But 

 in 1888 — the year of the last great irruption of the Sand- 

 grouse into Western Europe — Mr. Sydney Buxton introduced 

 and succeeded in passing a Bill for the special protection of 

 these strange Tartar invaders. 



The original Act, 51 and 52 Vic, cap. 55, which, "in 

 order," as the Preamble states, that the birds "might, if 



