ANNUAL MEETING. 
133 
melody of his poetry, and his wonderful command of our mother tongue, seems 
to me to have had two great characteristics. The first was the deep moral feeling 
and the high moral lessons which his poetry contained, and the second was the 
manner in which he taught us to see so much in Nature that otherwise we might 
not have appreciated. For if you look back over the ancient writers you will be 
struck how little even the greatest of them appreciated the beauties of the world 
in which we live. I am far from suggesting that there are not some magnificent 
descriptions of scenery in the great poets and thinkers of old ; but they are gene- 
rally incidental and exceptional. If there are two men who have taught us to see 
what is before us, I think we should name John Ruskin and our first President. 
The Protection’ of Wild Birds. 
Our first object, as stated in the programme of the Society, is to preserve from 
unnecessary destruction all wild birds, animals, and plants which are harmless 
and beautiful. It must be with regret that we recall how many most beautiful 
birds have, rather recently, almost disappeared from our fauna. Amongst them 
I may name the common crane, the common bittern, the spoonbill, the great auk, 
the bustard, the night heron, and many others whose names are a delightful sound 
to us all, and which might well still be inhabitants of these islands. And besides 
these there are many occasional visitors which, if we give them the welcome that 
we ought to extend to all foreigners, might have been domesticated, and would 
have added to the beauty and interest of the country. Such were the hoopoe, 
the stork, the roller, the rufif, the reeve, and many others. Unfortunately, it is 
just those species which are noblest and most beautiful that are most liable to dis- 
appear, unless we can take steps such as this Society advocates. I have been 
associated with several Bills in the House of Commons which had the object of 
endeavouring to secure the continued existence of rare birds. With other friends, 
a great many years ago, I introduced a Bill with that object. In the schedule of 
that Bill are given the names of the birds to be protected ; and I dare say many 
of you may have wondered how in the world that list came to be so framed ; 
why some were included and others omitted. Well, the true history of that list 
is, I understand, a curious one. When we brought in that Bill Sir William Har- 
court opposed it. However, we finally secured the second reading, and it was 
referred to a Select Committee. Sir William was a member of that Committee. 
He felt, no doubt, that he could not destroy the Bill after the vote of the House, 
but he — very naturally from his point of view — felt bound to make it as innocuous 
as possible. I am given to understand, therefore, that he thought that if he had 
never heard of a bird it was not important whether it was protected or not. 
When, on the other hand, he knew the name of a bird he objected to it. So that 
list is a list of the birds of England of which Sir William Harcourt had not heard 
at that time. That Bill had done something. But recently many of our friends 
have thought that the time had come when another step forward should be taken, 
and Sir Herbert Maxwell asked me to join him in promoting another Bill ; but we 
find ourselves in a difficulty. Some naturalists consider that the only way to pro- 
tect birds is by protecting their eggs. They say, for instance, that if we wish to 
protect the nightingale we cannot altogether prevent bird-nesting in the neighbour- 
hood of London, but we may make it an offence to take the eggs. That applies, 
of course, to other birds. But these other naturalists said that unfortunately eggs 
vary so much that it would be almost impossible to obtain convictions, and, there- 
fore, we ought to take areas, to protect certain districts. I hope we may be able 
to combine the ideas of both schools, which have the same object in view, by pro- 
tecting both species and areas. There are some small areas where rare birds are 
found which may be protected, and, on the other hand, some rare species build in 
districts such as, for instance, the Bass Rock, where it would be impossible to 
forbid altogether the taking of eggs. I am not without hopes that we shall be 
able to carry our Bill before long. 
The Destruction of the New Forest. 
Then there is the other question, that of the protection of the vegetable king- 
dom. It is certainly a most extraordinary thing that we should have absolutely no 
school of forestry in this country. Many years ago, I endeavoured to persuade 
