112 ox THE SEA-RIRBS rRESERTATIOX ACT, 



those at the Farne Islands would matenally affect them as spe- 

 cies, so numerous and so widely distributed are they, any more 

 than the drainage of the Fenlands did the interesting species 

 formerly inhabiting them. Wholesale destruction at one breed- 

 ing locality drives the birds to other places, but does not extir- 

 pate the species. 



Under these circumstances, I rather doubt the utility of ex- 

 tending the close-time. If the public become aware of the injury 

 they could do by robbing the eggs and young there might be a 

 still worse chance for the birds rearing any young at all. The 

 birds are persecuted in this respect far too much already ; but 

 if by extending the close-time you exasperate the public, they 

 may retaliate and do more mischief still. 



The shooting naturalist's real pleasure in meeting with a rare 

 bird, or a bird in a rare state of plumage, far exceeds any fancied 

 pleasure a man can have in slaughtering birds and unoffending 

 animals by hundreds for any other purjiose. All laws should be 

 as much for the advantage of the poor as of the rich, and it is 

 hardly right that the rich man should be able to break the law 

 on his own extensive domain witli impunity, and yet desire to 

 deprive many a poor man unnecessarily of an almost innocent 

 recreation, and tliis merely because some persons abuse tlie privi- 

 leges so long accorded to Englishmen. 



The Act alluded to omits the poor Cormorant from the pro- 

 tected list because Nature directed it to eat fish : rather a curious 

 reason ! Probably in Scotland they ascend the rivers and take u 

 few young Salmon, and in consequence they arc considered *' ver- 

 min." Now, if the charge against them is that they feed on fish, 

 why preserve the other fowl at all ? They all eat fisli, and if the 

 ([uantity required to provide those at the Fame Islands for a single 

 day was taken into consideration, I wonder the fishenuen do 

 not take alarm at once, for fear they would clear the sea of all 

 the young fish. Even the fishes themselves, as tlie Cod aud 

 others, not only prey on other species, but even on their own ; 

 why are they not considered vermin also ? Probably the fisher- 

 nicn :iic frving to ch'iir tlu- sea of them; at any rate they take 



