THE IMMEDIATE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CONVENTION 
115 
What the French mean thereby, we know: so in this place 
we need only emphasise the argument used to support the 
three points presented by pointing to the quail above all and, 
in some respects thrushes, woodcocks and larks. 
It is pointed out that the quail and thrushes are to a 
great extent insect-eaters, a fact of great significance. In 
Africa (i. e. Algiers) these birds carry on a real war of exter- 
mination against the grasshoppers, which they consume 
wholesale. It is particularly the quail, which, since the ex- 
tinction of the ostrich and the thinning of the ranks of the 
Houbara Bustard (Otis houbara), offers the only appreciable 
resistance to the „ grasshopper danger" and is, therefore, of 
extraordinary importance to the French colonies. 
The French sportsmen are sorry that the Declaration of 
1875, entered into by Germany (!), Austria and Italy, took no 
notice of this point.^ 
The French sportsmen finally presented the following three 
points to the approval of the International Conference: 
1 . Absolutely to be forbidden, on plains, in the forests or 
on marshes, the use of nets, snares, traps and bird-lime 
— filets, lacets, gluaux, tr^buchets, pieges de toutes sortes — 
in fact, every kind of bird-catching instrument except the 
gun, which is suitable enough (v. supra: Berlepsch's pro- 
posal). 
2. During the close time the traffic in, the „transito" trans- 
port or colportage of birds of passage reckoned as game to be 
forbidden: „we Frenchmen particularly demand the prohibition 
of the sale and „transito" transport of quails, the example 
1 The ignorance of the French sportsmen is best displayed by 
their writing that the Convention of 1875 was entered into in 1893 {\) 
by „L'Allemagne, I'Autriche et I'ltalie" : but such things, from Frenchmen, 
surprise us no longer. 
8* 
1 
