(300 Digby Pigott : Wild Birds 



possible, become acclimatized " in the United Kingdom, 

 made it illegal for three years to kill or expose for sale any 

 British-killed Sandgrouse, expired on the 1st January, 1892, 

 but has been again and again renewed by Expiring Laws 

 Continuance Acts, and is still in force. 



Unhappily the Act for the protection of the Sandgrouse only 

 locked the stable door after the horse was stolen. By the 

 time it came into operation, on the 1st January, 1889, 

 almost all the birds, some of which had bred in England 

 and Scotland, had left the country. 



The general cuiestion cropped up again in 1891, when a 

 Bill was introduced by Mr. Alfred Pease, proposing to 

 extend the close season, as fixed by the 1880 Act, from the 

 1st to the 12th August, and to give County Councils in Great 

 Britain and Justices in Quarter Sessions in Ireland unlimited 

 power to prohibit taking birds' eggs in these comrtries, and 

 to make the killing of the 36 favoured birds named in a 

 Schedule illegal at any time and under any circumstances. 



It is not very easy to understand on what principles the 

 list of birds to be thus specially protected was drawn up. 

 Crossbills, Goldfinches, and Woodpeckers, for instance, were 

 to be sacred. Nightingales, Pied Flycatchers, Shorelarks, and 

 such rare visitors as Bee-eaters, and Pose-coloured Pastors, 

 might be shot at will. Well backed though it was — 

 Mr. Asquith, Lord Granby, Sir Edward Grey, and 

 Mr. Sydney Buxton, all of them authorities in such matters, 

 were among the backers — the Bill dropped. Two years 

 later another Bill was brought in, this time with Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell's name at the head of the list of backers. It 

 repeated the Act of 1881, and gave unlimited power to 

 County Councils in Great Britain, and to Justices in Quarter 

 Sessions in Ireland, to protect eggs but did not repeat the 

 provision of Mr. Pease's Bill forbidding the killing of favoured 

 birds at any time. 



This Bill, after long discussion, was considerably altered 

 in the House of Lords, and being finally dropped for the 

 session, was re-introduced the next year (1894) as amended 

 by the Lords. Its scope and objects were explained in a memo- 

 randum attached from which the following is an extract : — 



