IRature IRotes : 
^be Selbovnc Society’s ^Ibaoasinc. 
No. 6o. DECEMBER, 1894. Vol. V. 
THE NEW WILD BIRDS’ PROTECTION ACT. 
VERY important document was referred last month 
by the Cumberland and Cheshire County Council 
meetings to their Committees. It was a letter from 
the Secretary of State, calling attention to the fact 
that in some parts of the kingdom the Wild Birds’ Protection 
Act (1880-1) had failed to fulfil the intent of the Legislature, 
and that in consequence the attention of the County Council 
must be drawn to a new Act, the Wild Birds’ Protection Act of 
1894 (57, 58 Vic. cap. 24), which became law in July last, and 
the responsibility of putting which Act into force lay now on the 
County Councils. The County Council, if it chose to do so, 
could henceforth move the Secretary of State to grant an order 
to allow it to become the law of the land in any area within 
the County Council jurisdiction. 
Those of us who knew the Wild Birds’ Protection Act of 
1880-1 felt it was doomed to failure. Its schedule of the wild 
birds that needed protection was not complete. It only gave a 
close time from March i to August i, which was at least a 
fortnight too short at either end. It did not forbid nest 
destroying or egg stealing, except in the cases of certain game 
birds. 
But this new Act to amend the former gives for the future 
complete protection to our feathered friends, if the County 
Council so wish it. For the first time the taking of the nests 
and eggs of the ordinary wild birds of our land can be made 
penal. Henceforth any person who shall in a forbidden area 
take or destroy, or incite any other person to take or destroy : 
(a) the eggs of any wild birds within any area specified in the 
order ; [b) the eggs of any species of wild birds named in the 
