Plant and Animal Preserves in Europe 85 
be looked upon as the originator of scientific and ethical bird pro- 
tection. The movement increased, and in 1876 a law regarding the 
protection of useful birds was presented to the Reichstag. This 
measure failed to pass, but several of the federal states made in 
the meantime new protective regulations or enforced old ones ; and 
finally in 1884, at the first International Congress of Ornithologists 
in Vienna, resolutions of importance for the birds came up for 
discussion. The same may be said of the second International Con- 
gress in Budapest, in 1892; and at the third, in Paris. 1902, an 
agreement was made l)etween Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, 
Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, Austria-Hungary, Portugal, 
Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, regulating the protection of birds 
useful for agriculture. This was ratified by the German Reichstag 
on June 5, 1902. Before this, in March, 1888, a general bird pro- 
tection measure had passed the Reichstag for Germany alone. This 
law was revised and passed again in May, 1908, and was a con- 
siderable improvement upon that of 1888. Berlepsch, in his elabora- 
tion of methods to retain the birds and to facilitate their exist- 
ence; Conwentz, by the founding of the State Bureau for the Care 
of Natural Monuments ; and countless societies for the promotion 
of knowledge and protection of birds, advanced the cause of the 
birds greatly. 
The first suggestion for creating Bird Refuges in Germany dates 
from 1883, but the first actual refuge is the Memmert, a sandbank 
between Borkum and Juist, in the North Sea, founded in 1907 by 
the " German Society for the Protection of Bird Life." Gulls and 
terns are the principal birds breeding there. Two armed guards 
are stationed on the island, and in 1920 a very satisfactory increase 
was noted — about 4,000 pairs of Lariis argcntaHis, 2,000 Sterna 
macrura, and other species in various quantities. 
On the islands of Mellum, Juist, Baltrum, and Langeoog (East 
Friesian Islands), there are a considerable number of bird refuges. 
On some, guards are maintained, as on Langeoog ; on others, as is 
the case of Baltrum, the inhabitants guard the birds and their nests 
to a certain extent. The l)ird colony of Norderney, however, was 
destroyed during the war. Competent observers believe that the 
worst dangers for those interesting and characteristic colonies are 
past, and that the near future will make uj) for the losses sustained 
in the past bad years. At the mouth of the Elbe we find a refuge 
on the island of Neuwerk, and another on Trischen farther north, 
where there are colonies of sea birds, notably terns. 
