120 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



example, the Prussian Government, the local authorities and societies, 

 and private individuals have all co-operated to secure the forest dis- 

 trict of Chorin, near Berlin, including fenland and a small lake, also 

 a tract of forest in the Hartz Mountains. Saxony has followed this 

 example. In Holland, the Naardermeer, in the south of the Zuider 

 Zee, with its rich avifauna, is now effectively isolated, while in 

 Sweden immense stretches of country in the far north and elsewhere 

 have been closed to the collector, not before it was necessary. It is 

 common knowledge that before the reservation of the magnificent 

 Lapland country round the Torned Trdsk, and simultaneously with 

 the opening of the Baltic-Atlantic railway, the district was ruthlessly 

 over-collected by dealers and others ; in one summer a single in- 

 dividual is credited with the removal of 10,000 plants. In Hungary 

 there are several reserved areas ; one of them at Puszta-Peszer, in 

 the Pest Comitat. In France good work has been done by the 

 Forest Board in the protection of undergrowth and by some local 

 prohibitions in the departments of Isere and Savoie on behalf of a 

 few Alpine plants. Much the same may be said of Switzerland, 

 where a few Cantons have issued edicts against the destruction of 

 edelweiss and other " threatened " flowers. In Belgium, though at 

 present little has been done officially in the way of protection, the 

 Boyal Botanical Society has completed an admirable survey of 

 desirable natural sites (" Pour la Protection de la Nature en 

 Belgique." Jean Massart, 1912), and this work has aroused general 

 public interest. 



In the United States, where it is obvious that the conditions are 

 entirely different as far as the acquisition of primitive land is 

 concerned, the system of " National Parks" has been inaugurated, 

 but unfortunately too late to save a large part of the indigenous 

 fauna. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa have set 

 the Mother Country a splendid example of what can be done in this 

 direction. In England, where space is limited and the population 

 numerous, a beginning has been made by the acquisition for the 

 nation of a part of Wicken Fen, in Cambridgeshire, the shingle and 

 salt-marshes of Blakeney, in Norfolk, and the " Buskin Beserve " 

 near Oxford : all these retain their primitive character. Much more 

 remains to be done, and it is hoped that the " Society for the 

 Promotion of Nature Beserves" will meet with wide and sympathetic 

 support. — (Beprinted from the ' Times.') 



