16 
an Act of Parliament can effectually avert the mischief done by 
such individuals. Apart from the cruelty, however, of this un- 
ceasing persecution, the birds thus slaughtered during the breeding 
season are utterly worthless for the table ; their flesh is tough and’ 
flavourless, and the females, heavy with egg, would be, one might 
imagine, better suited to the depraved taste of a Chinaman than to 
an English palate ; yet our poulterers’ shops, throughout March 
and April, and sometimes even in May, bespeak a demand for such 
delicacies, and mark at the same time the necessity for some legal 
enactment to stop the supplies. The bill, as at first drawn, pro- 
posed a “close time” extending from the 1st of April to the 1st of 
August, but the former date, I have rc^ason to believe, will be 
altered to the 1st of March, the very latest at which protection 
should commence, owing to the early breeding of many of the 
species named. Throughout the present month (March) snipes, 
teal, and wild ducks have been hanging for sale in the Norwich 
market,* all killed in this county, though in many localities both 
snipes and wdd ducks have been paired, and some of the latter 
actually sitting during the same period. Nor is this an exception 
to the general rule, or owing, merely, to the mildness of the season. 
Now, as in former times, the amount of fowl exhibited in our 
own markets, in winter or spring, is no criterion of the number 
actitally killed in the county, the Metropolitan markets absorbing 
the chief bulk of the supply. Within the last forty years a single 
game dealer at Yarmouth was accustomed to send on an average 
about fifty head of wild fowl per week to London, all killed in 
that neighbourhood, and this for a period extending from October 
to March or April ; and though, at the present time, the supply, 
from all sources, is in strange contrast to the above, nevertheless 
dealers in Leadenhall-market have their agents in Lynn and Yar- 
mouth, and rare and common birds alilce, forwarded direct by rail, 
* The value attached to that which is “ out of season ” will be seen by the 
following prices asked for birds, out of condition, both in the London and 
country markets: — Norwich, March 2Gth, 1872; Wild Duck, 5s. 6d. per 
brace ; Wigeon, 2s. 9d. ; Snipe, 3s. 6d. ; Golden Plover, 2s, ; Teal, 3s. Cd. 
Leadenhall Market : Wigeon, Is. 6d. to Is. 9d. each ; Snipe, Is. to Is. 6d. ; 
Woodcocks, 3s. to 5s. 
