THE PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS’ EGGS. 239 
The Conference of Delegates, having heard of the threatened extermination of 
for British-taken eggs, and trusts that the corresponding societies will do all that 
lies in their power to interest and influence naturalists, landowners and others in 
the preservation of such birds and their eggs. 
All will agree that if legislative protection for wild birds’ eggs is 
_ asked for at all, it is not required for all species. Indeed, sweeping 
legislation would do more harm than good. There are certain groups, 
such for instance, as the Passeres, that are very well able to take care 
of themselves, and need no protection. Again, all will agree that it 
would be a mistake to pass laws which could not be enforced. Any 
_ general law against egg-collecting would be easily evaded, and every 
one knows the demoralising effect of an unenforced rule. 
Setting aside, then, all idea of a general prohibition of egg- 
collecting as impracticable, if not mischievous, there are still cases in 
which the maintenance of the present freedom from restraint appears 
to be open to doubt; as we have already stated, there are certain 
Species which will shortly become extinct as breeders in the British 
Isles if steps are not taken by legislation or otherwise to protect 
them. What can be done for these? 
Here the difficulties begin. What form of protection is the best? 
and to what species should such protection be extended? If it is 
€ventually found necessary to have recourse to legislation, the most 
practical plan would probably be for the Imperial Legislature to 
grant powers to the County Councils from time to time, and as the _ 
necessity arose, to place certain portions of a district, such as 
mountains, commons, waste places, lakes, and meres, or portions of 
cliffs or foreshores, under an Act for certain specified months in the 
year, say from April rst to June 3oth. Such a plan would be seers 
and might be effective. 
. But very much more than any legislative protection, we want the 
_ Sympathy and co-operation of landowners and occupiers in ea! to 
get them to protect the birds breeding on their property or or occupa- 
- _ tion. The whole matter of the preservation both of birds oy their 
_ &ggs ought to be better managed by those on whose property the 
_ Various species nest re by any legislative restrictions. If land- 
_ Owners and occupiers, game-preservers and gamekeepers, would 
Only use whatever atl and common sense Providence may have 
endowed them with, and learn to discriminate between friends and 
foes, we lovers of birds for their own sake should not have much to 
complain of. Farmers are beginning to know at last that all birds 
: are not their enemies, and ideas of the same sort are working slowly __ 
4 — into the brains of some few cmap ti and into (meee of a ts : 
