SELHORNIANA 
43 
ferns, on the 31st he sent seven ba"s of ferns, and the first week 
of February two bags more. The bags were consigned to a man 
in Covent Garden Market. 
Mr. Jesse, the deputy chief-constable, added that there were 
twenty-four convictions against Ley and one against Westlake. 
The depredations of tlie cliaracter deposed to were beco.ning a 
perfect nuisance to the county and the police. The damage 
clone in that way was great, and the police were doing every- 
thing possible to assist the United Devon Association in their 
efibrts to deal with what was a serious matter. 
The Chairman said the Bench were determined to put a stop 
to such depredations, which were ruining the beauty of the 
county of Devon. Westlake would be sentenced to two months’ 
imprisonment with hard labour, and Ley, who appeared to have 
been, to a certain extent, the other’s agent, to six weeks’ 
imprisonment with hard labour. 
Betting .\nd Be.\gles .\t Eton College. — We have 
received the following letter from Mr. Joseph Collinson, of the 
Humanitarian League : — 
“ There has lately been some talk in the Press about ‘ the praiseworthy 
determination of the Headmaster of Eton to put down in his school the mis- 
chievous practice of betting.’ But if betting is rightly forbidden among school- 
boys, ought not beagling to be at least as strictly denounced ? How can it be 
more demoralising for Dr. Warre’s ‘ infants ' to make bets on horses than to worry 
hares ? The accounts printed in the Eton College Chronicle of the ‘ breaking up ’ 
of hares and the ‘ blooding ’ of hounds are simply sickening ; and at no other 
public school is such an amusement allowed. Why does not the Headmaster of 
Eton (who is also on the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A.) put an end to this 
scandal by converting the hare-hunt into a drag-hunt, which would give the boys 
a healthy form of exercise without the stain of cruelty?” 
The Wild Birds Protection Act. — Mr. Douglas Secretan, 
of Worth, Sussex, writes : — 
“ I have read much correspondence in Nature Notes complaining that the 
Wild Birds Protection Act is a dead letter. Allow me to say that this is not the 
case here. We used to be very harassed by bird-catchers, but since telling one or 
two of them the law (politely, but very clearly), and setting a village policeman on 
their track, we have been rid of them altogether. Sunday was their favourite day, 
and they generally came from London. I think if all your members would make 
this law public, and insist upon its being put into operation, it would soon become 
a true part of our living legislation.” 
We happen to have had an opportunity years ago of witness- 
ing the zeal of the police in the Crawley district ; but in what has 
appeared in these pages on the subject utterance has merely been 
given to the firm convictions of such experienced men as Mr. 
Hudson, Mr. O..G. Pike and Mr. Percival Westell ; and we are 
convinced that the existing law is defective, and that, such 
as it is, it is inadequately enforced. As a case in point, we have 
just received a cutting from the /m/i Times oi February ii noting 
the shooting in co. Carlow of a specimen of the American bittern, 
Botannis lentiginosus, a species which has only been recorded 
some twelve times in the British Isles. 
