98 
HISTORICAL PART 
As resolutions in point of principle the Hungarian and 
Austrian delegates proposed the following three axioms: 
1. The protection should be extended to all birds except 
those noxious to agriculture and forestry. 
2. The Game Laws to decide which birds may figure as 
.game'\ 
3. Wholesale taking of birds to be forbidden; the trans- 
port of the same to be restricted. 
These axioms were readily endorsed by the German dele- 
gates. But the Italian delegate declared that the prohibition 
of wholesale bird-catching in Italy was impossible and that 
he had instructions not to agree to any convention which 
contained a stipulation of that kind. 
In deference to the opinion of the German delegates it 
was agreed that efforts must be made to secure a form of 
state treaty which offered better guarantees that those contained 
in ministerial declarations, — this referred, of course, to the 
„ Declaration-^ of 1875. 
Nevertheless the meeting accepted the principle that the 
international convention to be framed at Paris should be 
endowed with the legal nature of the ^Declaration" of 1875, 
i. e. that it should be binding only on the governments; 
and the right of making a fresh statement in this sense at 
the Paris international conference was reserved.^ 
It is easily understood that this recurrence to 1875 was 
done to pacify the Italian delegate, for only by so doing 
would it be possible for a resolution accepted by Hungarians, 
Austrians, Germans and Italians to be presented at Paris. 
The Berlin resolution consisted of 15 clauses and avoided 
everything that could have affected Italy. In § 3, which reca- 
pitulates the methods of taking, no mention is made of the 
^ Report of Francis Saarossy-Kapeller. 
