• * * 
L ni. 2 
It should be superfluous to’state that my Essay is here presented in 
its original form. Based on the observations and experiences of a lifetime 
of leisure pre-eminently devoted to the study of birds in their native 
haunts, it will scarcely commend itself to exaggerated protectionists and 
faddists who are as unwittingly inimical to the true interests of the 
feathered race as are rabid teetotalers to those of temperance. Daily 
walks and talks with Nature are eminently calculated to inspire a 
distaste for what is in palpable conflict with her teachings, and those, 
accordingly, who delight in ebullient rhapsody and fustian clap-trap need 
not expect to be etherealized by my matter-of-fact pen. Bather by 
sober judgment than by sentimental impulse, as 1 regard the problem, 
must our aspirations and endeavours on behalf of birds be regulated. 
Far too long, alas ! have some people been enamoured of the meretricious 
attractions of an elusive will-o-the-wisp ;—to profit by the honest light 
and guidance of the pole-star has, apparently, never occurred to them. 
A further comment I have’to make is that the very distinguished 
ornithologist, with whom lay the final decision, was not requested to say 
whether he endorsed or dissented from the views contained in the 
limited—and rightly limited—number of essays specially selected for 
their excellence by the Publication Committee of "the Society, and 
submitted to him. The venerable Canon merely had to make the 
awards according to their individual merits, placing 1 and 2; and, this 
done, his responsibility was at an end. I conceive it only right, in view 
of the strictures I have passed on the suggestions ,of [the winner of the 
Society’s supplementary prize, that due publicity should be accorded to 
this fact, though possibly only the very unsophisticated will need to be 
warned how abhorrent are advanced opinions^and inflated doctrines to 
those who love birds not less devotedly than the “[extremists,” yet with 
a magnitude of knowledge and discretion sometimes sought in vain in 
non scientific circles. There is a certain undefined responsibility attaching 
to the Society for the Protection of Birds, of which as a corporate body 
they cannot divest themselves, and it is not impossible that their views 
and recommendations may find favour with those on w T hom ultimately 
rests the decision of whether or not legislative effect shall be given to them; 
on these broad grounds, then, have I taken leave to publicly question the 
acumen of its Publication Committee. Though admiring the zeal which 
animated the speech to which I have been constrained to apply some 
pungent criticism, I maintain that its salient proposal—which I naturally 
opine was embodied in the very heart of the speaker’s essay—would in 
really discerning hands have been pounced upon as a fatal disqualification. 
It is idle beyond denial to waste so much as a thought on suggestions 
that are manifestly fantastic and quite outside the pale of practical 
legislation. 
It may sound unchivalrous, but I am, indeed, far from intending it 
unkindly when I say that the Society for the Protection^ Birds suffers, 
