THE PRESERVATION OF OUR WILD PLANTS. 



407 



age of 14 years shall wilfully employ or induce any child below that age 

 to commit any such prohibited act. Any person acting in contravention 

 of this Bye-law shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not 

 exceeding 40s. for the first offence, and not exceeding 51. for any second 

 or subsequent offence." This the Home Secretary considered " too wide 

 in scope, especially if applied to the whole county," still thinking it better 

 if " the bye-law could be limited to particular spots or districts where 

 the protection is chiefly needed ; or, supposing the protection is wanted 

 generally throughout the county, if it could be limited to rarer kinds of 

 Ferns and plants." To this the Council, on Mr. Hiern's motion, replied 

 in June that they " consider that it would be scarcely practicable to 

 frame a satisfactory bye -law to apply only to rare Ferns or plants, but they 

 suggest that the bye-law should be confined to particular parishes, or parts 

 thereof, to be indicated locally by public notices." 



Other counties are, I fear, likely to be far more apathetic in the matter ; 

 and one of the main difficulties, as also to a great extent in the case of 

 the Wild Birds' Protection Acts, is to get occupiers of land to prosecute. 

 The United Devon Association has paid watchers and a paid conductor of 

 prosecutions, somewhat on the lines on which the Royal Society for the Pre- 

 vention of Cruelty to Animals and the National Society for the Prevention 

 of Cruelty to Children find it necessary to supplement the ordinary police 

 force. This is, I think, unsatisfactory, so that special legislation is called 

 for, on the lines of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts, to strengthen the 

 hands of the County Councils and simplify the action of the Home 

 Secretary. In Switzerland, Italy, Savoy, and to some extent in Con- 

 necticut, species are scheduled. Thus in Savoy the uprooting of Edelweiss, 

 Cyclamen, Rhododendron, Lady's-slipper, Eryngium alpinum, Gentian, 

 and Tutsan is expressly prohibited ; the transport, hawking, and sale of 

 roots of Alpine plants are also forbidden, and the obligation of enforcing 

 this order is laid on mayors, gendarmes, police, and forest guards. In 

 Connecticut it has been enacted that — 



" Every person who shall wilfully injure any tree or shrub standing 

 upon the land of another, or on the public highway in front of said land 

 or injure or throw down any fence, trellis, frame -work, or structure, on 

 the land of another, or shall wilfully cut, destroy, or take away from the 

 land of another any creeping Fern, crops, shrub, fruit, or vegetable pro- 

 duction, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned 

 not more than twelve months, or both. . . . 



" Every person who shall wilfully pull up, tear up, dig up, or destroy 

 any trailing Arbutus from the land of another, or who shall sell, expose 

 for sale, purchase, or have in his possession, any Arbutus with the roots 

 or underground stems attached, shall be fined not more than twenty 

 dollars ; provided, however, that any person may take such Arbutus on 

 land owned or leased by him, or with the permission of the owner or 

 lessee." 



These enactments were specially framed to protect the White Birch 

 from the injurious removal of its bark down to the cambium, the Hart- 

 ford Fern (Lj/godium palmatum), the Walking Fern (Camptosorus), 

 Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum), and Mayflower (Epigcsa repens). 



Magistrates might, no doubt, prove reluctant to convict a man for 



