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it happens that the obscure Useful functions fail to obtain recognition, 
whilst the apparent injurious habits, which immediately affect mankind, 
are conspicuous. It follows, then, that game preservers who allow their 
keepers to destroy every bird that is hurtful to their interests are sooner or 
later required to pay the penalty of their indiscretion. The weakly 
specimens, which would be the first to become victims of their natural 
enemies, survive when those enemies have been ruthlessly destroyed, 
and under their influence the stock degenerates and over-crowding ensues— 
with its inevitable concomitant, disease. To check any inordinate 
increase of a species that is capable of harm, is one thing; to attempt 
to exterminate it, quite another. 
Unsatisfactory in sundry respects as the legislation hitherto enacted 
undoubtedly is, the protection of birds has received immense assistance 
from the Wild Birds Acts. By renderings certain acts illegal, a power 
has been placed in the hands of the public, the responsibility of using 
or ignoring which is entirely their own. An Act of Parliament is not 
automatic, and needs enforcing to be of much avail. Parenthetically 
I may admit that the enforcement of the law touching the preservation 
of birds seems to be fraught with considerable difficulty in outlying 
districts. I have in my mind at the moment a not unnatural reluctance 
to inform against a delinquent and so incur the odium of a countryside 
by trying to enforce what most of the inhabitants might be apt to 
regard as a legal fad. Still, it does not follow that a, law should not 
exist because of occasional breaches which go unheralded and unpunished. 
A weak point in the law as it stands is the great disproportion between 
the monetary value of any rare specimen killed, and the amount of the 
fine in the event of a successful prosecution. Again, it is not in the 
favour of the existing Acts of Parliament that the initiative for their 
due enforcement should be left to private individuals. With regard 
to an issue that has already been touched upon, namely, the want of 
uniformity in the schedules of protected birds in adjoining districts, 1 
wish by reiteration to emphasise my contention that absurdities and 
inconsistencies are bound to reign so long as arbitrary geographical 
divisions are adopted, and people differ as to the propriety or otherwise 
of protecting certain individual species. In sundry parts of the country, 
as may not be generally known, steps are taken by public-spirited bodies 
to protect shore birds during the breeding season through the agency of 
watchers. The expense is defrayed by subscription, and the benefits 
