THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL ORNITHOLOGICAL CONGRESS, 1884 67 
eggs, shall be forbidden in the first half of the calendar year 
or in a corresponding period. 
II. The wholesale taking of birds shall be forbidden at all times " . 
Before drawing a final conclusion we must remark that 
the Swiss delegate most nicely secured the interests of his 
own country when in his first proposal he protected the 
„gibiers de passage", i. e. „ migratory game", for the first 
half of winter; and his object was the same when, in the 
text of the foregoing compromise, he limited the traffic to 
the first half of the year: in consequence thereof the 
transport through Switzerland of the bag of the wholesale 
quail-catching practised on the N. coasts of Africa and in 
Southern Europe remained untouched as long as the traffic 
was in vogue. Equally interesting was Borggreve's proposal, 
which takes no notice of egg-taking, since in the Northern 
regions of Europe the wholesale taking of gulls' and lapwings' 
eggs has an economic significance. 
If we take all the proposals and compare them with the 
geographical situation of the several States, with the con- 
sequent natural conditions and the effect upon birds, it will 
be perfectly clear that it is impossible to create any reso- 
lution, regulation or law that would be suitable everywhere ; 
that, consequently, whether resolution or law be proposed, 
the States concerned must be allowed freedom of action in 
so far as the peculiar conditions of their respective countries 
require the general regulations to be supplemented with 
special legislation. 
From this point of view, it is only natural that the com- 
promise passed by the first International Ornithological Con- 
gress had no absolute result; its want of success was ren- 
dered still more inevitable by the fact that it did not decide 
which species were useful, which noxious? What modificati- 
ons could the States have introduced? 
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