SELBORNIA NA 
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suits them. I’m not against fair sport, but my opinion is that 
if the outside public knew half of what goes on over there — 
pointing with his thumb towards the Gun Club — “there’d be a 
bit of a rumpus.” 
And there will be, if the truth is half as horrible as we are 
told. 
Lark-Hawking. — In the course of an article on the revival of 
falconry The Morning Lcadey for July 10 contains the following : — 
“Lark-hawking with merlins — the form of ‘ falconry ’ likely 
to be the most largely indulged in by the women who are 
adopting the new sport — is very good ‘ fun ’ upon the whole, and 
as the merlin is comparatively easy to train he is likely to be 
more in demand than either the peregrine or the sparrow-hawk — 
the latter at all times an unsatisfactory bird to have much to do 
with in the field. But hawking is surely one of those ‘ blood ’ 
sports with which women at least should never associate them- 
selves ; and the lark of all birds should be sheltered from 
the action of the Englishman’s instinct to ‘go out and kill 
something.’ ” 
Selling Eggs in Close Time. — Our attention has been 
called to a paragraph in The Daily Mail for June 21 as to the 
withdrawal from an auction at Messrs. Stevens’s Room, of forty- 
three lots of eggs of cuckoo, nightingale, bearded tit, chough, 
siskin, &c., catalogued as “all this season’s take,” and a cor- 
respondent suggests that the Selborne Society should take action 
in the matter by obtaining, through the auctioneer, the name 
of the law-breaking miscreants who took the eggs. We would 
point out, however, that the Society was never intended to be a 
prosecuting society like the R.S.P.C.A., and has no funds for 
such a purpose. If the Wild Birds Protection Acts are to be a 
reality, surely this is one of the cases upon which the police 
should act on their own initiative. 
American Legislation for the Protection of Birds. — 
We have received from the United States Department of Agri- 
culture their Bulletin, No. 12, of the Division of Biological 
Survey, Legislation for the Protection of Birds other than Game Birds, 
by Dr. J. S. Palmer, published on May i. This is a most 
valuable compendium of all the laws on the subject in the 
various States of North America, for Canada is included, illus- 
trated by figures of six leading species. About 1,125 species 
and sub-species of birds, we are told, inhabit North America 
north of Mexico. From the legislative standpoint they may be 
roughly divided into three groups; (i) insectivorous or song 
birds, such as thrushes, to be protected at all times ; (2) game 
birds, about 200, i.e., 18 per cent of the whole, which may 
be killed at certain seasons for food or sport, such as quail ; 
and (3) injurious birds, such as the English sparrow, which are 
excluded from protection. The American Ornithologists’ Union 
