BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



27 



ANNUAL MEETING- OF THE 

 SOCIETY. 



The annual meeting- of the Society for the Protec- 

 tion of Birds was held at the Westminster Palace 

 Hotel on February 24th, 1904. The Right Hon. 

 Sir Edward Grey, Bart., M.P., presided, and there 

 was a large attendance. The speakers included, in 

 addition to the Chairman, Mr. Sydney Buxton, 

 M.P., Rev. Canon Rawnsley, MacLeod of MacLeod, 

 Mr. E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, and Mr. Montagu 

 Sharpe, C.A. (Middlesex), D.L. The report for the 

 year 1903, which showed a slight deficit in the funds 

 on account of the amount of work undertaken, was 

 adopted ; and the Committee were re-elected, with 

 the addition to their number of the Hon. Mrs. Arthur 

 Henniker, Miss Lilian Pollock, Mr. R. Bosworth 

 Smith, Rev. A. L. Hussey, Rev. J. E. Kelsall, 

 Rev. Canon Rawnsley, and Mr. H. A. Paynter. 

 The proposal of the Committee to petition for the 

 incorporation of the Society under a Royal Charter 

 was unanimously approved. A full report of the 

 proceedings has been published by the Society, 

 and may be had from the office, 3, Hanover 

 Square. 



NOTES. 



Nine Points of the Law. 



Possession, it is said, is nine points of the law. 

 This is especially the case with the law respecting 

 the possession of wild birds. Two years ago an 

 Act was passed empowering the confiscation by 

 the authorities of birds and eggs illegally taken 

 upon the conviction of an offender. This was a 

 most necessary step. But, unfortunately, a con- 

 viction must come first ; simple possession is not 

 sufficient, the fact that the receiver is as bad as the 

 thief (and often worse) not being as yet recognized. 

 Brighton and Bristol, County Boroughs with good 

 Bird Protection Orders of their own, have had this 

 truth brought home to them of late. At Bristol 

 bird protectors lament that though they may 

 schedule certain birds and protect them ail the 

 year through, the bird-catcher can march through 

 their streets with cages full of these very birds, and 

 evade the intentions of the Order by declaring 

 them to have been caught outside the borough 

 boundaries, where the law, as it stands, permits 

 such catching in the open season. A recent case 

 at Brighton was brought under the Act of 1896, 

 but the point involved was similar. Under the 

 Act of 1880 it is an offence to be in possession of a 

 newly killed or caught wild bird after March 15th, 



but the Act of 1896, in empowering County Councils 

 to protect certain species throughout the year, only 

 speaks of the "killing or taking"; consequently 

 the two bird-catchers who were summoned for being 

 " in possession'"' of twenty-six larks and ninety-six 

 linnets (both protected birds) in January were dis- 

 charged, the magistrates, however, offering to state 

 a case. 



A Box of Linnets. 



Another bird-catching story from a different part 

 of England is a further illustration of the pre- 

 posterous condition of things under which some 

 half-dozen laws for the preservation of our wild 

 birds are placed upon the Statute Book, and 

 then those whose duty it is to enforce them look 

 blinkingly on while the bird-catcher sweeps the 

 countryside of its songsters, and the collector 

 penetrates into the farthest recesses to seize upon 

 all that is rarest and most beautiful. A corre- 

 spondent writes : — 



"A short time ago, while waiting at a small station, 

 my attention was called to a continuous noise which came 

 from a large wooden box standing in the booking office. 

 I enquired of a gruff-looking man, covered with mud up 

 to his knees, whether birds were inside. ' I suppose so,' 

 he said, and went into the office to book the box to be 

 sent off by train. On further enquiry (not of this man) I 

 learned that the box contained ten dozen linnets and 

 other singing birds. From this one little station alone 

 about five hundred birds are sent off every week to Leeds, 

 Sheffield, and other large towns. Not one in ten of these 

 birds will live in captivity, so the wastage is enormous. 

 We do all we can to protect the birds here during the 

 winter, but what is the use when they are caught whole- 

 sale in this manner?" 



County Protection. 



The county from which the above letter comes is one 

 of those which make no effort to preserve their birds 

 outside the close season, so that for six months in 

 the year no species has any sort of protection. It 

 would not be amiss for the County Councils 

 Association to bring forward a list of some few 

 species which every county should be recommended 

 to protect throughout the year. If the bird-catcher's 

 chief prey were thus guarded, and only compara- 

 tively valueless birds left him for legal booty, it 

 would become scarcely worth his while to risk 

 conviction and the confiscation of his nets and 

 decoys. Another solution of the possession 

 difficulty would be an adaptation to English con- 

 ditions of what is known as the " Lacey Law" in 

 the United States. If such a provision were enforced 

 it would be illegal to sell or have in possession in 

 any county birds or eggs protected in that county, 

 no matter whence they were brought ; or to convey 



