Plant and Animal Preserves in Europe 85 



be looked upon as the originator of scientific and ethical bird pro- 

 tection. The movement increased, and in 1876 a law regarding the 

 protection of useful birds was presented to the Reichstag. This 

 measure failed to pass, but several of the federal states made in 

 the meantime new protective regulations or enforced old ones ; and 

 finally in 1884, at the first International Congress of Ornithologists 

 in Vienna, resolutions of importance for the birds came up for 

 discussion. The same may be said of the second International Con- 

 gress in Budapest, in 1892 ; and at the third, in Paris, 1902, an 

 agreement was made between Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, 

 Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, Austria-Hungary, Portugal, 

 Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, regulating the protection of birds 

 useful for agriculture. This was ratified by the German Reichstag 

 on June 5, 1902. Before this, in March, 1888, a general bird pro- 

 tection measure had passed the Reichstag for Germany alone. This 

 law was revised and passed again in May, 1908, and was a con- 

 siderable improvement upon that of 1888. Berlepsch, in his elabora- 

 tion of methods to retain the birds and to facilitate their exist- 

 ence; Conwentz, by the founding of the State Bureau for the Care 

 of Natural Monuments ; and countless societies for the promotion 

 of knowledge and protection of birds, advanced the cause of the 

 birds greatly. 



The first suggestion for creating Bird Refuges in Germany dates 

 from 1883, but the first actual refuge is the Memmert, a sandbank 

 between Borkum and Juist. in the North Sea, founded in 1907 by 

 the "German Society for. the Protection of Bird Life." Gulls and 

 terns are the principal birds breeding there. Two armed guards 

 are stationed on the island, and in 1920 a very satisfactory increase- 

 was noted — about 4,000 pairs of Larus argentatus, 2,000 Sterna 

 macrura, and other species in various quantities. 



On the islands of Mellum, Juist, Baltrum, and Langeoog (East 

 Friesian Islands), there are a considerable number of bird refuges. 

 On some, guards are maintained, as on Langeoog ; on others, as is 

 the case of Baltrum, the inhabitants guard the birds and their nests 

 to a certain extent. The bird colony of Norderney, however, was 

 destroyed during the war. Competent observers believe that the 

 worst dangers for those interesting and characteristic colonies are 

 past, and that the near future will make up for the losses sustained 

 in the past bad years. At the mouth of the Elbe we find a refuge 

 on the island of Neuwerk, and another on Trischen farther north, 

 where there are colonies of sea birds, notably terns. 



