602 Digby Pigott : Wild Birds 



for which also rests with Lord Jersey ; and 4 Edward VIL, 

 caps. 4 and 10, both passed in 1904. 



Of the two last-named Acts, the first makes the use of 

 pole-traps illegal. A Bill with the same object had been 

 unsuccessfully brought in the previous Session. 



The last repealed, with reservations, the clauses of the 

 Act of 1890, which had exempted St. Kilda from the opera- 

 tion of the law, with the object of affording protection to 

 the St. Kilda Wren and Fork-tailed Petrel. The godfathers 

 for these two Acts were respectively Mr. Sydney Buxton and 

 Sir Herbert Maxwell. 



The taking or destroying the eggs of these two birds within 

 the Island of St. Kilda is prohibited by a special Order made 

 by the Secretary for Scotland on the 5th May last. 



The general law for the protection of wild birds as it now 

 stands may, if I read it right, be summed up as follows : — 



There is a close time during which no bird of any hind, old 

 or young, can legally be killed or taken by any one but the 

 owner or occupier of the land on which it is found, or by the 

 deputies of the one or the other, nor by them if the bird is 

 one of those scheduled for special protection. 



The close season (originally intended to cover the nesting 

 season only) is, in the absence of special Orders to the con- 

 trary for any particular locality, from the 1st March to the 

 1st August. But on the application of Comity or Borough 

 Councils in Great Britain or Justices in Quarter Sessions in 

 Ireland, a Secretary of State in England, the Secretary for 

 Scotland in Scotland, the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland can 

 vary these dates, and in the case of particular birds, to be 

 specified, extend the close season to cover the whole year. 



Any one offering for sale or having in his possession after 

 the 15th March — a fortnight, that is after the beginning of 

 the close season — any wild birds recently killed or taken is 

 assumed to have obtained it illegally, and made liable to the 

 penalties attaching to a breach of the law. 



The authorities having* power to vary the close time, have 

 power also 



(a) To add to the Schedule of specially-protected birds, or 

 to remove any birds from the protection of the Acts, 



