1 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 149 
THE PROTECTION OF WILD LIFE, SANCTUARIES, 
AND NATURE RESERVES. 
(Summary of Mr. W. W. Froggatt’s Presidential Address) 
In the opening portion of his address, the President 
gave a brief review of the Game and Wild Birds  Pro- 
tection Acts that have been passed at different times in 
the Australian States. He pointed out that all the earlier 
laws were simply Game Acts, and that not until quite 
modern times were any clauses added to protect insect- 
ivorous birds even in the breeding season. Victoria and 
New South Wales were the first States to take the lead 
in enlarging the scope of their Game Acts, and now all 
over the greater part of the civilised world Wild Bird 
or Wild Life Protection Acts have replaced the old Game 
Acts. In most of the Australian States the existing laws 
and regulations are sufficient to protect our native fauna. 
put to a very great extent they are dead Acts, as it is 
no one’s special business to see that they are properly 
administered. The fauna should be protected under three 
headings. First, useful birds from their value as _ des- 
troyers of insect and other pests; secondly, all harmless 
birds on account of their beauty; thirdly, game birds and 
animals on account of the commercial value for food, furs, 
and skins. Mr. Froggatt pointed out that there was 
no private ownership in the wild life of the country; it 
was a valuable asset belonging to the whole community. 
and that while the man on the land was quite at liberty. 
and his rights were recognised, to destroy noxious birds 
and animals damaging his crops, the indiscriminate 
slaughter and thus final extinction of the unique birds 
and animals that it has taken uncounted ages to evolve, 
and which once gone can never be recalled, is a crime 
we are committing against unborn generations. 
In 1901, schedules of lists of Australan and foreign 
birds were drawn up in our Birds Protection Act by 
someone in authority, which were simply a jumble of 
names of birds, some of which did not at the time exist 
in New South Wales. Four years later this list was pro- 
perly revised; but it is even now simply a list ‘of popular 
and scientific names that would be of little use to any- 
one laying an information against a person shooting pro- 
tected birds. The Wild Life Protection Society have had 
