m 
HISTORICAL PART 
having been set by France, as included in the prohibitive 
convention." 
3. An absolute prohibition to be laid on the destruction 
of nests, the stealing of eggs, any traffic in the same or their 
transport, including both those of birds figuring as game and 
those of small birds. 
Of Points 1 and 3 we may say that they are already 
public opinion": in Point 2 the „transito" transport is an 
important element, of great significance, not only in the case 
of the quail but of those of our most useful and noblest 
singing birds. 
The noble „Association de Chasseurs" is rather mistaken 
in believing that all the States of Europe, apart from France, 
practise the taking of quails. The danger to quails hinges 
on two points, the wholesale taking of them in Southern 
Europe and in Africa and the consumption of the great 
Capitals of Europe. What the French chasseurs say concern- 
ing Algiers is very instructive and a warning respecting our 
great Hungarian plains. The Hungarian Lowlands (Alfold) 
have, in point of agriculture, undergone radical changes, of 
late quails have become very scarce, and we only occasion- 
ally come across a specimen of the once common breed of 
Bustard, the Little Bustard (Otis Tetrax). The draining of the 
country has resulted in the disappearance of the grasshopper- 
eating gulls too. On the other hand locust-plagues are becom- 
ing more frequent: we do not mean the historical breed but 
the much smaller Stauronotus maroccanus, i. e. the grass- 
hopper of Morocco; and this has become a danger. 
