2 
NATURE NOTES 
instances full data have been supplied and printed in the catalogues as to the 
time when, and the place where, the various clutches were taken. It is only fair 
to suppose that the owners of these eggs were unaware of the fact that the Orders 
had been violated. When such data are not supplied, it is allowable to imagine 
that there may be a reason for the omission. The Wild Birds’ Protection Act 
(1894) provides that ‘any person who shall take or destroy, or incite any other 
person to tike or destroy,’ protected eggs shall, on conviction, before two 
Justices of the Peace in England, Wales, or Ireland, or before the Sheriff in 
Scotland, be liable to a fine not exceeding one pound for every egg so taken or 
destroyed. The Act is not so clear as it might be as to the liability of persons 
buying and selling eggs known to have been illegally taken. But if the analogy 
with birds taken in close time is to hold good, it seems probable that anyone 
dealing with protected eggs would be liable to a fine. No such uncertainty 
obtains in the Isle of Man with regard to gulls’ eggs. It is expressly provided 
that any person who shall have in his possession any egg of any gull ‘ shall be 
deemed to have taken such egg unless he shall prove the contrary.’ Some such 
provision in the Acts applying to Great Britian and Ireland would practically put 
a stop to this illegal traffic. The auctioneers, we fully believe, have done what 
they could to prevent it ; but it would be unfair to expect them to be conversant 
with the Orders made by the various County Councils, which occupy over fifty 
pages in the standard ‘ Manual to the Protection Acts.’ Cases have occurred in 
town and country where attention has been called by formal protest, on the part 
of the Society for the Protection of Birds, to the fact that certain lots were 
illegally taken, and such lots have been quietly dropped. It is matter for con- 
gratulation that, though the law may fail to reach the collector who takes protected 
eggs, the .Society often succeeds in spoiling his market, with the active co-operation 
of the auctioneers to whom the eggs are sent. It is said to be the intention of the 
Society to bring to the notice of the Home Secretary the fact that eggs taken in 
defiance of the law are advertised for sale. If this course be adopted, official 
action will probably be taken which should bring home to illegal egg-lifters the 
consequences of their misdeeds, and thus diminish, if it does not put an end to, 
the practice of taking eggs which all bird-lovers would wish to protect.” 
Dkath of a Contributor. — We were grieved to hear that 
on the very day on which our last number containing “ Nature 
Notes from a Bath-chair ” was published, the writer of that 
article was buried in St. Tudno’s churchyard on the Great 
Orme’s Head, overlooking the sea, with naught but the sky with 
its wild sea-birds over his grave. 
A Thames Pilgrimage. — Lovers of the Thames will be glad 
to see a sequence of fifty water-colour sketches by Mr. C. J. 
Lauder, R.S.W., entitled “A Painter’s Pilgrimage from London 
Bridge to Hampton Court,” which are now on view at the 
Continental Gallery, 157, New Bond Street. 
SPINNING FISHES. 
||HE reader will hardly need to be reminded that there 
are, in various parts of the world, numerous forms of 
nest-making fishes; and that, conspicuous amongst 
these, are several sticklebacks.* The species with 
which we are here concerned are the fifteen-spined stickleback 
'Day, ‘‘ P'ishe.s of Great Britain and Ireland,” i. (1880), p. Ixi. On the 
nests of the common freshwater sticklebacks, the three-spined Gasterosteui 
acuUatus and the ten-spined GaslerosUus pun^tius, see Cosle, “Note sur la 
