CONCLUDING WORDS 
139 
amount of „luck". What an enormous pressure this brings 
to bear even upon the most enlightened statesmen! 
It is only the thought of such mighty pressure that can 
reconcile us to Game Laws such as those of Italy, the most 
important Clause (5) of which is an encouragement of the 
passion of bird-extermination. 
When, on June 27, 1904, Luioi Rava, the Minister for 
Agriculture, laid the Game Laws on the table of the House, 
iie rose to poetic heights in pleading their justification, saying : 
„Ne ai nostri giorni, nei quali deve muovere la fede degli 
educatori la virile sentenza: „mens sana in corpore sano", 
sarebbe perdonabile il disconoscere la utilita dell' esercizio 
fisico della caccia, onde 
Manet sub Jove frigido 
Venator, teneme conjagls immemor 
come canta Orazio".^ 
But if we examine everything included in the Italian draft 
under the title of really invigorating, genuine hunting, we 
shall find, not only that the catching and wholesale butchery 
of snipe ^ is practised just in spring when they are flocking 
up, and that of quails when, after passing the sea, they seek 
rest, half-dead with fatigue, on the beautiful coasts of Italy, 
but that the Permanent Committee of the Italian Senate, 
during the 1904 — 1905 Session, while discussing the said 
Laws proposed to draft „Articolo 5", as far as birds are 
concerned, as follows: 
„It shall be permitted to shoot, 
permanent birds from Aug. 15 till Jan. 31 ; 
* Camera dei deputati. Dissegno di legge presentato dal ministro 
di agricoltura industria e commerzio, Rava. 1902—1904. Documenti etc. 
No. 618. 
* Unfortunately it is so elsewhere too ! 
