GAME LAWS AND LICENCES 
and at the present time partridges in Ireland are reported to be not nearly 
so numerous as they were before the passing of this Act. 
THE POLE-TRAP ACT, 1904 
4 Edw. VII, c. 4 
The cruelty and unnecessary suffering inflicted by the use of an un- 
baited trap set on the top of a pole has been so long recognized by the 
humaner portion of the public that it is surprising that legislative action 
was not sooner taken to make the practice illegal. 
By the present Act, which was passed on April 28, 1904, the use of the 
pole-trap is now prohibited under a penalty not exceeding 40s. for a first 
offence, and for a second or subsequent offence a penalty not exceeding 
£5. If this Act is properly enforced it will not only prevent the great 
suffering caused to so-called “vermin,” whose destruction by some 
means or other is considered necessary by game preservers, but will 
also save the lives of many innocent victims for whose capture it was 
never intended. 
THE BAITED FISH-HOOK ACT, 1908 
8 Edw. VII, c. 11 
This Act, like the last-named, is entitled “An Act to Amend the Wild- 
Birds Protection Acts.” It was passed on August 1, 1908, and the principal 
section reads as follows : — 
“Any person who shall take or attempt to take any wild bird by 
means of a hook or other similar instrument . . . shall be liable on 
summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding 40s., and for a second 
or subsequent offence to a penalty not exceeding £5.” 
This Act was framed especially to put a stop to the cruel practice 
adopted by thoughtless persons at the seaside of catching gulls and other 
sea-birds with baited fish-hooks, thereby causing unnecessary and pro- 
longed torture. 
We come now to the law affecting hares and rabbits, but as in the present 
volume attention is confined to feathered game and wildfowl, it will be 
more convenient to defer the consideration of the Hares Act, 1848, the 
Ground Game Act, 1880, and the Hares Preservation Act, 1892, until, in 
a second volume, these animals will be separately dealt with. 
J. E. HARTING. 
433 
KKK 
