181 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



rare in certain rivers of Central Europe. At the present day they 

 are only found in Kussia, in Germany, and in Austria, and there, 

 far from proscribing these animals, the respective Governments 

 have passed stringent laws in their favour. Those who destroy 

 them are heavily fined. These industrious rodents of inoffensive 

 habits are not considered destructive on the banks of the Dnieper, 

 and its tributary the Pripet, the Volga, the Petchora, the 

 Vistula, the Oder, the Elbe and its tributary the Mulde, and the 

 Danube.* 



French Beavers are now so scarce that it seems to me very 

 desirable to prepare a map of the region of the Lower Rhone, 

 indicating the places which they inhabit on the Gardon and in 

 Camargue, before the end of the present century, in order to have 

 a record as complete as possible of those which still exist, and to 

 localize their haunts. This would form a fitting supplement to 

 the memoir by Professor Valery Mayet on " The Beaver of the 

 Rhone " (' Compte Rendu des Seances du Congres International 

 de Zoologie,' Paris, 1889, p. 58), and to some notes which I 

 published on the same subject in the 'Bulletin de la Societe 

 d'Etude des Sciences Naturelles de Nimes' (1889, p. xxiv; 1894, 

 p. 42 et p. 130 ; 1895, p. xxxiv, lxix et 100). 



ORDERS MADE BY THE HOME SECRETARY FOR THE 

 PROTECTION OF BIRDS AND THEIR EGGS. 



Since the passing of the Wild Birds Protection Amendment 

 Act of 1894, a great many applications have been made by County 

 Councils to the Home Secretary, and the Secretary of State for 

 Scotland, for orders prohibiting the killing of birds or taking of 

 eggs either within the county or within certain specified areas. 



The result is that between thirty and forty orders are now in 

 force in different parts of the country, differing in various ways 

 as regards close time and species protected, and causing (as we 

 foretold it would do) no end of confusion and uncertainty as to 

 the precise state of the law in any given locality. 



So far as we can learn at present, the following orders are 

 in force : — 



* A more detailed account of the distribution of the Beaver in Europe 

 will be found in ' The Zoologist,' 1886, pp. 273-280. 



