Introduction. 
Birds and Nature. 
The necessity for the organisation of an international settle- 
ment of the affairs of the bird-world was dictated by extre- 
mely natural causes closely bound up with the organic struc- 
ture and mode of life of birds and, from a purely human 
point of view, with the conceptions of utility and noxiousness. 
The fact that a whole generation was required to com- 
plete the convention agreed upon by a few European States, 
proves that the experts of the various States, often the govern- 
ments too, took entirely different views of the bird, judging 
it from the point of view of their several conditions, which 
latter, in some States, threw insuperable difficulties in the 
way of an effectual arrangement. The end of all this was that, 
the respective State or States being unable to subscribe to 
the International Convention, the latter was signed and 
accepted as binding by only a few of the States of Europe. 
Strictly speaking, then, the Convention, in its effects, has 
not yet been perfectly successful, for among those who have 
kept aloof from the movement are States of large dimensions 
and in other respects of no small importance: e. g. Russia 
in the North, Italy in the South and Great Britain in the 
West; though the latter, standing apart in this as in other 
matters, is taking its own special measures. 
