6 
London egg-sales, and that some check will be given to the 
trade in rarities carried on in North Britain under cover of 
St. Kilda’s unprotectedness. How busy the collector has been 
until the last moment was shown by the sale at Stevens’s on 
December 8th of the past year, when no fewer than 16 nests 
and clutches of eggs of the St. Kilda Wren, taken in 1908 and 
1904, were offered for sale. 
If something has thus been done for the legal protection of rare 
and interesting birds, infinitely more remains to be done if any 
of the nobler forms of bird-life are to be left to our country. 
Indignation is repeatedly aroused by the senseless acts of the 
man with a gun who levels it at any curious creature he may 
espy ; by the unfair prejudice of many gamekeepers against 
any winged thing that is not “game” ; and by the passion of 
many “ naturalists ” for bagging every rare species that comes 
within their ken. County Councils have done much in giving 
legal protection to many scarce species and to the areas in 
which they breed ; an excellent moral effect is produced by 
occasional convictions—such as those of an English clergy¬ 
man on July 12th, for taking eggs of the Skua and Sea-eagle 
in Unst, and of a Surrey gamekeeper and his employer on 
October 24tli, for shooting an Osprey at Cranleigh (in both 
cases with the confiscation of the specimens) ; but an efficacious 
method of checkmating the private collector has yet to be 
demonstrated, and so long as private collections continue to 
be enriched at the expense of the national fauna, so long 
will the list of Britain’s vanishing birds continue to grow apace. 
In accordance with the permission received from the Lords 
of the Admiralty in 1903 that H.M. Coastguard should give 
assistance in carrying out the Acts, detailed information with 
regard to the Bird Protection Orders in force in every sea-coast 
County and County Borough in Great Britain and Ireland, 
together with copies of “ Acts and Orders,” were again for¬ 
warded in the spring of 1904 to the Divisional Officers of the 
Coastguard for the use of the 728 Coastguard stations of the 
United Kingdom. It is interesting to know that copies of all 
the Society’s communications to the Coastguard, and of the 
official letter on the subject from the Admiralty, have been 
asked for and supplied from Whitehall to the Audubon Societies 
of the United States of America. The United States have an 
extensive system of “ wardens ” or watchers in operation, as the 
result partly of State activity on behalf of Bird Protection and 
partly of the energy and liberality of the associated Audubon 
Societies. 
Lundy 
Island. 
In addition to the Coastguard correspondence, and to grants 
for watching in certain localities continued from last year, a 
