222 
NATURE NOTES. 
order, shall, on conviction before any two Justices of the Peace, 
pay for every egg so taken or destroyed, a sum not exceeding 
one pound. 
Henceforth the Secretary of State, to quote the words of the 
Act, moved thereto by the Council of any administrative county, 
may prohibit : (i) the taking or destroying of wild birds’ eggs in 
any year or }’ears in any place or places within that county ; or 
(2) the taking or destroying the eggs of any specified kind of 
wild bird within that county or part or parts thereof, as recom- 
mended by the said County Council and set forth in the said 
order; (3) the application of the County Council shall specify 
the limits of the place or places or otherwise, the particular 
species of wild birds to which it is proposed that any prohibition 
in the order is to apply, and shall set forth the reasons on 
account of which the application is made. 
As regards due notice, the public will be warned three weeks 
before the coming into operation of the Act in any locality, 
by advertisement in local papers and by public notices. As 
regards the cost of working the Act, this will be looked upon as 
an expense for general county purposes within the meaning of 
the Local Government Act, 1888. 
Henceforward, then, if the County Council will it, the glory 
of rural England, its varied bird life, will be preserved. And 
though it has come too late to preserve many species, at least it 
may be in time to save twenty-two kinds of wild birds that are in 
jeopardy from passing away from among us. 
It is not only that the bright winged birds, such as that 
emerald of the brook, the kingfisher, may again delight all who 
will not grudge him a few minnows and a little trout spawn, and 
a great many freshwater snails, or that again the green and 
ruby of the woodpecker may flash by us in the woodland, that 
one pleads the importance of this Act. It is not only that our 
heavens may be filled with the song of the lark, the pipe of the 
curlew, the hooting of the owl, the cry of the plover, and our 
eyes once again marvel at the flight of the falcon and stoop of 
the merlin, that one urges attention to it. It is that before it 
is too late, the Government has now placed it in the hands of 
County Councils to help the agriculturist, by enacting that the 
balance of nature shall be restored, and the farmer’s friends, 
the white owl and the kestrel, the rook, and even the starling, 
the much abused green linnet and chaffinch, and the fisherman’s 
friends, the herring- gull and kitty wake, shall not cease from 
their beneficent labours in the land. 
It is high time that this balance should be restored, if we 
do not want all the plagues of Eg}’pt to be poured out in 
wrath upon us— if that exceeding great army the caterpillar, 
and the cankerworm, and that victorious host the vole, the rat, 
the mouse, and such small deer, are not to have it all their own 
way. The cry of “ Save us from the vole ! ” in Scotland, is 
echoed by the cry in Lincolnshire, “ Save us from the rat ! ” 
