WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACT. 173 



destroy, or incite any other person to take or destroy, the eggs 

 of any species included in such order in any place specified 

 therein, shall, on conviction before any two justices of the 

 peace in England, Wales, or Ireland, or before the sheriff in 

 Scotland, forfeit and pay for every egg so taken or destroyed a 

 sum not exceeding one pound. 



(2.) Any order made under this section shall be published by 

 the authority not less than fourteen days before the commence- 

 ment of the period when the prohibition shall commence, by 

 advertisement in the principal newspaper or newspapers pub- 

 lished within the county, or, if none are published therein, then 

 in the principal newspaper circulating within the county, and by 

 such further means as the authority may determine. 



(3.) A copy of any such order purporting to be certified by 

 the clerk of the authority shall be evidence of the order having 

 been made. 



(4.) All expenses incurred by the authority in the making or 

 publishing of the order shall be defrayed out of any fund or rate 

 out of which the general expenses of such authority are payable 

 by law. 



III. The Wild Birds Protection Act, 1881, is hereby re- 

 pealed. 



IV. The schedule to the principal Act shall be read and 

 construed as if the word " lark " had been inserted therein. 



The proposal to empower county councils to prohibit the 

 taking of eggs is one on which some difference of opinion 

 may be expected to arise. There is a good deal of sentiment 

 about the time-honoured practice of " birds-nesting," a practice 

 in which boys in all ages have been permitted, and indeed 

 encouraged, to indulge, provided they do not trespass nor commit 

 wilful damage, — restrictions, however, which are too often but 

 lightly regarded. To abolish this ancient practice entirely would 

 be not only unwise, but unnecessary. There are many birds 

 whose eggs may be taken without prejudice to anyone, and with- 

 out fear of exterminating the species to which they belong, so 

 long as the parent birds are not killed or taken at the same time. 

 But there are others, like the Lapwing or Peewit and Black-headed 

 Gull, whose eggs are a source of profit to those upon whose lands 

 they are found breeding, and which are taken wholesale by un- 



