4 
thing. He also admitted that there must be in the country a 
certain number of public museums and collections, because in 
that way people gained knowledge, and knowledge added to 
happiness. But the person who did do mischief was undoubtedly 
the private collector—the man who took little or no interest in the 
thing in life, but who wished to possess it dead, and stuff it, and 
put it in a glass case. The ideal of the private collector, or at any 
rate of some private collectors, seemed to be that all birds should 
be exterminated, and that nothing should be left except one pair of 
each species stuffed, and one clutch of eggs, and that these should 
be in his own private possession. People whose great desire was 
to possess rarities and keep them in their own houses had much 
better take to collecting stamps. The stamp collector wished just 
the same thing. He would like an issue of stamps to come out 
which would be a small issue ; he would then like it to cease, and 
he would be very glad if the whole was lost except the particular 
specimens in his own album. There was nothing to be said against 
that, because as fast as one issue of stamps disappeared another 
came oat to take its place, and the variety of stamps in the world 
was increased. Bat when once one particular species of bird— 
such as the Great Auk, for instance—was destroyed it could never 
be reproduced, nor could any new sjiecies be created ; and the 
world was so much the poorer. What the Society wished was to 
prevent the world becoming less beautiful, and to preserve for 
future generations the same, and possibly even better opportunities 
of enjoying wild life than we ourselves enjoyed. It was the 
tendency of the age more and more, he was glad to say, to try and 
make the innocent pleasures of life common and appreciated, and 
one object of the Society was to preserve the wild bird life of 
this country, because it believed that by so doing it was adding 
to the common stock of innocent, healthy, and refreshing happiness, 
available for everybody who had eyes to see and ears to hear. 
The Rev. Canon Rawnsley seconded the motion, saying that 
it gave him great pleasure to be able to say a few words on the 
very important subject before them. While the country was 
divided into two camps—Protectionists and Free Traders—in that 
particular room all were Protectionists, they all believed in the 
protection of birds. He felt he must first of all express his thanks 
to the Society for indefatigable work in the past year in teaching 
that among the best friends of man are these winged.creatures of 
the wood and field ; and then congratulate Mr. Sydney Buxton for 
his brave steering of the Pole-trap Bill through the House. Those 
who, like himself, had seen the torture of the pole trap to a strong¬ 
winged bird like the buzzard on the Cumberland fells, felt that the 
work was a really deep religious one, for as Wordsworth said, 
“ Who cannot feel for every living thing, 
Hath faculties that he hath never used.” 
