THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. July 1, 1909 
tee ee eel 
birds can be found nesting, and the 
Government keep paid wardens on these 
= + islands for their protection. All the 
Royal Society 
for the Protection of Birds. 
— 
—— 
British President, Her Grace the Duchess of Portland | / 
— AUSTRALIAN 
PRESIDENT—LADY BONYTHON. 
VICE-PRESIDENTS—Rigur Honourssun SIRS. J. WAY, 
Barr. anv Mes. JOHN PLAYFORD. 
BRANCH.— 
HON. SECRETARY-—MISS S WARE. 
Several Aspects of the Protection of Our Native Birds 
[By Walter W. Froggatt, Government Entomologist, in the 
‘ Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W.’] 
(Continued from last issue.) 
The movement before the lovers of | 
animal and bird life to get the power to 
have these Acts administered as the 
farmers intended, and further still to 
have all the State laws dealing with the 
matter embodied in a comprehensive 
Federal Act, has now become a necessity. 
It is only a few years ago that the citizens 
of the United States arrived at the same 
conclusion, but their laws were in even a 
more complicated condition than ours are 
at the present time, for not only did each 
‘State, and there are forty-eight of them, 
have a different Game and Protection Act 
within its boundaries, but in some cases 
several counties of a single State had 
different regulations and close seasons, 80 
that the unscrupulous pot-hunter could 
step across the boundary line and kill all 
he wanted with impunity. 
The laws of the United States are con- 
sidered perfect now, in theory at any 
rate; but it is not so much from what they 
are doing now, as what was done in spite 
of the old Acts, that we can ‘earn some 
lessons. Ail-theirbig game, bison -and 
deer, in their countless thousands, have 
vanished off the great plains in one 
generation. Mr, Mitchell, of Victoria, 
Texas, who came to the ‘Lone Star 
State’ fifty years ago, told me that he 
could remember the time when there 
were more deer on the prairie than there 
are cattle at the present time. You have 
only to take up the works of any of the 
writers of thirty or forty years ago to read 
how prolifie life was on those rich lands. 
What has become of the countless millions 
of the passenger pigeons that used totake 
their fight every year over the North 
American forests, and which comprised 
one of the regular food supplies of the 
settlers? They are reduced to a few 
isolated flocks now nesting in the Michigan 
woods. 
When the fashion set in for sea- 
birds’ wings to trim ladies’ hats some 
twenty years ago, there were countless 
flocks of that beautiful tern known as 
the ‘sea swallow’ on all the sands and 
islands from Cape Cod to Southern 
Florida; to-day there are only two small 
islands in the north where afew of these 
great hosts have been slaughtered for 
their plumes, to deck ladies’ hats. In 
Southern Europe the treatment of 
feathered life could not be worse; for the 
natives of the northern shores of the 
Mediterranean Sea eat every kind of bird 
little or big, that falls into their hands. 
The Italians construct extensive and 
permanent trapping-places along the 
coast, in which, by means of nets and 
decoy birds, they destroy thousands of 
the migratory birds © coming across 
from Africa on their’ way to Central 
Europe to nest in the summer time. 
In the market at Beyrcuth, going from 
Constantinople, the writer saw hundreds 
of rollers, larks, and swallows plucked and 
cffered for sale; and in the orchards on 
the Dog River, beyond the town, every 
man one met had a gun, and shot at every 
bird that came in his range. And in our 
State what is more common than to 
4 see wanton shooting of birds of every 
kind, 
(To be Continued,) 
A meeting of the Royal Society for 
the Protection of Birds was held at the 
Y.W.C.A. rooms on Monday, June 28, 
Mr. J. G. O. Tepper presided. The hon. 
secretary (Miss S. Ware) reported that 
the revival of the society had met with 
good support, but old members were slow 
in sending in their subscriptions. A 
letter was read from-His Excellency the 
Governor, expressing his sympathy with 
the objects of the society and accepting 
the position of patron. Mr, J. W. Mel- 
lor, who represented South Australia at 
the State Conference, held in Melbourne 
last year to consider the unification of 
the game and bird protection laws, gave 
a brief resume of the work done at the 
conference, which sat for several days. 
The energy of one of the police officers 
stationed at Murray Bridge in carrying 
‘out the bird protection law was heartily 
‘approved of by the meeting, and reference 
was made to a conviction recorded against 
a city a man for shooting a plover. Messrs 
-M. Symonds Clark, J. W. Mellor, and 
J. G. O, Tepper were appointed to 
represent the society at the conference to 
be hela during the week to consider the 
bird pest question. 
Those desirous of joining the Royal 
Society for the Protection of Birds should 
communicate with the Hon. Secretary— 
Miss 8. Ware, 112 South ‘Terrace E., 
Adelaide. ese 
ee 
