Protection Acts in Great Britain and Ireland. 607 



With the law as it now stands with regard to birds, as 

 distinct from eggs, I do not think that much fault is to be 

 found. All are agreed that, within reasonable limits, it is 

 desirable that the breeding season should be a close time, 

 and that birds of exceptional rarity or interest should be 

 protected throughout the year. 



As to the necessity for the protection of eggs also, those 

 of small birds more especially, I do not venture to express an 

 opinion. It is a point on which authorities of equal weight 

 are not of one mind. I believe I am correct in stating that 

 the Close-time Committee of the British Association, looking 

 at the matter from a practical point of view, was not alto- 

 gether in favour of interference, unless in very exceptional 

 cases, with birds-nesting, holding that protection should be 

 given to the breeding stock rather than to their progeny and 

 that this would be found sufficient. 



But, assuming the protection of eggs as well as the parent 

 birds to be desirable, the law as it is now applied in most 

 English counties is open to a serious objection. 



It must almost of necessity work unequally, and weigh 

 more heavily on the poor and uneducated than on well-to-do 

 people, such as the dealers, who do most mischief. 



I refer not to the establishment of sanctuaries within 

 which no eggs of any kind may be taken — this is not open to 

 the same objection — nor to the protection of the eggs of one 

 or two vanishing birds, such as the Cornish Chough, which 

 is the only bird whose eggs are protected in Cornwall and 

 more than one Irish county, but to the more usual provision 

 to be found in county Orders protecting the eggs of long- 

 lists of comparatively common species (to the exclusion of 

 others at least as rare or interesting), most of which could 

 only be sworn to if the bird had been actually seen on the nest. 

 It would be interesting to know how many of the 180 odd 

 annual convictions for offences against the Bird Protection 

 laws in England were for taking the eggs of scheduled birds, 

 and in how many of these the offender was defended cr 

 sufficiently intelligent to fight his own battle. 



It would be even more interesting to know the nature of 

 the evidence accepted as conclusive by the convicting Court. 



