IRatiue IRotes : 
^The Sdbonic Society’s nDaoa3ine 
No. 75. MARCH, 1896. VoL. VII. 
GOOD NEWS FOR WILD BIRDS. 
F any good work is to be done, it is just as well that the 
would-be worker should be thoroughly acquainted with 
the tools that lie ready to his hand. Yet it may be 
doubted whether very many zealous champions of Wild 
Birds are fully alive to the meaning of the Act passed for their 
protection in 1880, while still fewer persons, probably, know how 
to make the best use of the much wider Act of 1894. 
County Councils, however, have been waking up during the 
past year to the opportunity afforded them by these two Acts, 
and in the coming breeding season there will be few places in the 
country where protection of some kind or another will not be 
afforded to wild birds — or at least the rarer of them — and their 
eggs. On thd application of a County Council, setting forth the 
particular method or methods of protection which they most 
approve, the Home Secretary may — and does, as a rule — make 
an Order which has the effect of converting into an offence, 
punishable by a fine, any tampering with wild birds or their 
eggs as the case may be in contravention of the terms of the 
Order. The enforcement of the penalty is left to the local 
authorities or to private persons, and it is here that vigilant but 
not too contentious lovers of feathered creatures may be of 
much assistance. There must of necessity be considerable diffi- 
culty in bringing to justice such a fugitive offender as he who 
illegally takes eggs or kills or snares birds ; but many hands 
make light work, and every Selbornian should put himself 
quite au fait with the state of affairs in his county, and do his 
best to administer the Acts and the Orders, taking care, how- 
ever, not to strain the matter into an occasion for multiplying 
unnecessarily the juvenile culprit. 
