322 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



We have always maintained that if the sitting bird is properly 

 protected during the period of incubation, there is no necessity 

 to impose a penalty for taking the eggs ; for even if the first egg 

 or eggs be taken, and the nest is deserted, there is always the 

 good chance, if not the certainty, of the parent bird laying again 

 elsewhere, and eventually rearing her young in safety. 



Twenty years ago, a Committee appointed by the British 

 Association to report upon the subject expressed and emphasized 

 this view, and stated, moreover, that the effect of birdsnesting on 

 species whose numbers are not decreasing (and their name is 

 legion) was inappreciable, and that consequently there was no 

 need of any legislative interference with the practice. This must 

 be apparent to everyone who considers that our forefathers have 

 for generations in their boyhood persistently taken the eggs of 

 such birds as Blackbirds, Thrushes, Hedgesparrows, Robins, 

 Chaffinches, Buntings, Pipits, Wagtails, and other "common" 

 species, and that, notwithstanding this, these birds are still 

 "common"; while it seems to us equally evident that such kinds 

 of Plovers, Snipe, and Wildfowl as have ceased to be common as 

 breeding species, have become so, not by reason of the continual 

 destruction of their eggs, but in consequence of the destruction 

 of their natural nesting haunts through advancing civilization, 

 and the cultivation and drainage of waste lands. 



The seafowl, prior to 1869, when the first modern Act of 

 Parliament was passed for their protection, had become almost 

 exterminated on some parts of the coast, not because their eggs 

 were annually taken from them, but because parties of thought- 

 less and inhuman "gunners" (wholly unworthy of the name of 

 " sportsmen" or " naturalists ") were in the habit of going out in 

 boat-loads under the cliffs, and barbarously shooting the old 

 birds while they had eggs or young in their nests. The prohibi- 

 tion of this practice has saved many species from extinction. 



It seems to us that what held good then, in the case of sea- 

 fowl, holds good still, in regard to land birds. Nothing was 

 needed for present requirements but a strict enforcement of the 

 Act of 1880, which, as we have said, protects the sitting bird 

 during the breeding season ; and if (by reason of the fact that 

 a first offence is punishable only by a reprimand and payment of 

 costs) this Act is found in practice to be less effectual than it 

 should be, nothing would have been simpler than to amend it 



