Seeing, then, that Parliament is a machine too little sensible of local peculiarities to be used for the adjustment of local regulation of this matter, it has naturally occurred to those anxious to effect some protection for rare or interesting species, to intrust county councils with powers to apply for prohibitive orders in favour of such birds as those best acquainted with, and most directly interested in, the various localities may deem it desirable to protect.

So far every one, or almost every one, seems agreed; but then arises the difficult question, What form of prohibition would prove at once most effective and least oppressive? The bill introduced into the House of Commons last year took up the subject ab ovo, and was an Egg Bill pure and simple. It provided that county councils should obtain power from the Secretary of State in England or the Secretary for Scotland, and, in Ireland (where there are no county councils), quarter sessions should obtain power from the Lord Lieutenant, to prohibit the taking of eggs of named species within the area of their jurisdiction or any part thereof. The bill passed through all its stages in the Commons with the hearty assent of all parties, with this further provision added in Committee, that powers should be afforded in like manner to prohibit the capture or destruction, during part or the whole of the year, of such species as the county councils should select for protection. It was not until the measure came to be considered in the less emotional atmosphere of the House of Lords that practical objections presented themselves to these proposals. Ornithologists of undoubted repute had been consulted, and expressed the discouraging view, which has since been

indorsed in the 'National Review' for April 1894, by Lord Lilford, who holds a very high place in natural science, and whose opinion cannot fail to carry great weight:

"Some few of us may identify birds, but I think that I shall meet with the support of all conscientious ornitholowould swear to the specific identity of gists when I say that not one of them

any

British bird's egg, without having clearly identified the parent bird, as he or she left the nest that contained it."

It must be hoped that this statement admits of some modification, seeing that the existing laws prohibit the taking of eggs of certain species classed as game-pheasants, grouse, partridge, &c.

Professor Newton ably illustrated the difficulty of identification at the meeting of the Society for the Protection of Birds. Among many other examples he took that of the ruff, a beautiful bird once plentiful, now all but extinct on the British shores. He placed three eggs before the audience, one of a reeve (the female of the ruff), another of a redshank, and a third of a lapwing, and showed how closely they resembled each other, arguing therefrom that, in order to protect the eggs of the reeve, those of the redshank and lapwing, both common species, must be made taboo also. What would then become of the supply of plover's eggs? This evidence, and much more like it, must go far to convince the advocates of legislation that there is so much variability in the eggs of a single species, and so much resemblance between the eggs of different species, as often to make it impossible even for experts to pronounce with confidence upon their identity: how much more would it be beyond the power of rural con

stables or gamekeepers to speak with authority!

The House of Lords took this view last year, and striking out the provision for protecting the eggs of species, substituted one for the total prohibition of all eggtaking in such areas as county councils might specify. Further, they refused to give powers to these local authorities to prohibit the capture or destruction of certain species of birds, but inserted a clause to enable them to add such birds to the schedule of the original Act, whereby they should be protected during the nesting season. But in thus avoiding one set of objections, another set, almost as fatal to the intention of the promoters of the bill, had to be encountered. If the protection of areas were adopted in lieu of the protection of the eggs of selected species, it would follow that in order to preserve the nests of interesting, useful, or rare birds, all other birds, however common or however mischievous, breeding within the protected area, would be brought under the ægis of the law.

Two or three instances will suffice to show the absurd results that might ensue. Suppose the County Council of London, inspired with the laudable desire of protecting the nests of nightingales on Wimbledon Common, were to obtain powers to declare that place a protected area, it would forthwith become illegal to take the eggs of any bird within defined limits. It happens that one of the most hurtful and least ornamental birds in the British list the carrion crow-breeds in that neighbourhood, and has greatly increased in numbers of late years. It is a greedy and cruel marauder, and it would be a most undesirable result of legislation that it should

be allowed to multiply unchecked. It would be equally unreasonable to foster unduly the common house - sparrow, which is in no danger of extinction, and does infinite damage in villa gardens; yet both these species would be sacred within the protected area. Again, suppose the County Council of Northumberland were resolved to protect the kingfisher (and who but collectors or schoolboys would find it in their hearts to gainsay such a to gainsay such a merciful project?), would it not be utterly unreasonable to forbid the taking of all eggs on the banks of streams frequented by kingfishers?

Now, take a case from a more remote portion of the realm. In Foula, one of the Shetland Isles, and one or two other remote spots in that region, there still exist colonies of the great skua or bonxie. The rarity of their eggs has brought them into great demand with collectors, and the natives of these islands derive a good profit from their sale. But the skua that lays these golden eggs is in some danger of extinction by reason of the indiscriminate rapacity of the islanders. Who, indeed, shall blame the poor fellows for taking advantage of this means of adding to their slender incomes? but it were better, in their own interest, that some check should be set upon wholesale robbery of the nests, or the day will come when the source of profit will cease altogether, and the British fauna be deprived of a very interesting bird. Last year, it is said that not a single chick was hatched in Foula; every egg was taken and sold to collectors: and now there are in the islands less than one hundred pairs of bonxies to carry on the stock. The eggs will be taken each season, and some day birdlovers will have to mourn the ir

reparable fact that the bonxie has shared the fate of the great auk. This is just one of those cases which cause people to look to the Legislature to do something; but it is also one of those cases in which the protection of an area would be impracticable, or, in so far as it might prove practicable, tyrannical. It would probably be impracticable, or next door to impracticable, because of the difficulty of enforcing such a law in so remote a district as Foula; and it would certainly be tyrannical, because, to prohibit all egg-taking in Foula, where the annual eggharvest is essential to the subsistence of the natives, would be to inflict a grievous hardship on the people.

It would almost seem, therefore, as if the alternative means of protection afforded under the bill in its present shape the protection of species and the protection of areas -were equally unworkable. There remains this objection common to both of them, that the persons who are at the root of the mischief-the professional collectors -would not be much affected, and the offenders most easily overtaken would be the last whom any one would wish to punish. So long as birds persist in laying attractive eggs at the sweetest season of the year, so long will bird-nesting prove irresistible to schoolboys, and no matter how the prohibited species or prohibited areas were marked off, it would be schoolboys who would be pounced upon by the constable or gamekeeper. Experts in ornithology are not more commonly found upon county councils than in other assemblies; it would not, probably, be the rarest and most valuable species that would receive attention, but familiar song-birds-the thrush, the robin, and the chaf

finch-universal favourites, and deservedly so, but absolutely beyond present need of protection. To such as these we are under no debt which may not be cancelled by a supply of crumbs, bones, and kitchen scraps in hard weather; because, having almost wiped out of existence the sparrow-hawk and others of their enemies, they are present with us in far greater numbers than they could ever have been had we not interfered to their advantage with the balance of nature.

For the third main provision of this bill, enabling county councils, with the approval of the Secretary of State, to add selected species to the schedule of the original Act, thereby affording them a close-time in the breeding season, there is more to be said; but it must be admitted that this would be but a sorry survival from what was originally an Egg Bill. There is little doubt that, had the county councils of the Scottish Border counties possessed this power, they would, during the plague of voles which devastated their upland pastures in 1891 and 1892, have decreed the preservation of kestrels and owls of all sorts, nor is it likely that the interests of game-preservers would have suffered much under the edict. It is true that the useful kestrel does occasionally, in individual cases, fall into depraved habits, and frequent the coops where young pheasants are being reared. Owls, also, are not above suspicion in that respect. But these are exceptions to the regular habits of these birds, and the good they effect in devouring vermin immensely outweighs the mischief. The fox is treated with consideration by game-preservers in hunting countries, because of his service to the noble science: not less considerate should sportsmen show themselves to these

birds, so helpful to farmers; for all wild sports must come to an end unless a generous system of give and take be maintained between sportsmen and agriculturists. It is a platitude often uttered at Agricultural Society dinners, that the interests of landlord and tenant are identical. This is as far from being the case as it is in any kind of barter or commercial transaction, but it is quite true that these interests are so inextricably interwoven that a good understanding between parties is essential to the weal of both.

The Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to inquire into the vole plague received overwhelming evidence in support of the good work done by mouse-eating birds; but they also heard a great deal more than was proved to be trustworthy. The origin and development of the scourge of voles in Scotland had been commonly attributed to the destruction of birds of prey by gamekeepers, but in the course of the inquiry that idea was shown to be utterly unfounded. Not only do the chronicles show that from the earliest times of which there is any record, long before small-game-preserving was carried out in the modern sense, both in this and other lands, unaccountable swarms of small rodents have suddently appeared and disappeared as suddenly; but when the Committee visited the plains of Thessaly, which in 1892 and 1893 were devastated by an outbreak of voles, they found that the plague had arisen in the presence of innumerable kites, buzzards, kestrels, and other mouse-eating birds, which nobody cares to molest in that country. Nevertheless, the presence of such birds in moderate numbers will undoubted

ly mitigate, and possibly in some cases altogether avert, such visitations.

To return to the problem of how the eggs of desirable species may be protected without tyrannical interference with rural liberty, it must be confessed that the right method does not yet seem to have been devised; and probably no more likely solution of the difficulty is to be found than that suggested by Mr Digby Pigott in a recent letter to the Times'-namely, that landowners should enjoy as much right to protect eggs laid on their ground as they have to protect gooseberries growing in their gardens. That might be effective in a few isolated instances. It would provide some safeguard for the only two eyries of the osprey which are still frequented in the Highlands of Scotland, and it would meet the views of a proprietor of one of the Western Isles, who, being laudably anxious to preserve the eyrie of a pair of white-tailed eagles which breed annually on his land, finds his desire frustrated year after year by the eagerness with which the eggs are sought after, owing to the high price given for them by collectors. Well-known and well-marked species like the osprey and sea-eagle might benefit by these means, but less conspicuous, though to the naturalist not less interesting, birds would hardly be in a position of greater security. Few landowners have acquainted themselves with any except the most conspicuous birds visiting their woods and fields. They are scarcely, as a class, qualified to administer prohibitive powers in this matter with discretion. Moreover, a very large number of them are absent from their homes at the critical season of the year.

In addition to all these objec

tions, there remains the physical difficulty of protecting those birds which breed in solitary or desolate places. Probably no British bird undergoes at the present time more unmerited persecution than the red-legged chough. His eggs bring a good price, and so does his body, dead or alive, for none makes a more engaging captive than the bird of St Columba. He is already under the shelter of the Act of 1880; but inasmuch as his haunts are the lonely cliffs of the west, the law is practically a dead letter, for there is no one at hand to enforce it. The result is that this harmless and attractive bird is becoming annually more scarce, and is in proximate danger of extinction. And if it has proved thus impossible to protect the parent birds, how much difficult it would be to protect their eggs. Nesting as they do on the same rocks as their vulgar cousins the jackdaws, who is to restrain the hand which does useful service in clutching the eggs of the daws from seizing those of the choughs?

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On the whole, therefore, it would seem that all these benevolent schemes are foredoomed to failure, because none of them touches the root of the evil-the professional collector. Not that he is morally to blame; he is but earning his livelihood, and will continue to do SO as long as amateurs are So thoughtless as to offer long prices for British specimens. It is a loftier ambition, perhaps, to possess a complete collection of the eggs of British birds than to be the owner of volumes of damaged postage-stamps: the associations connected with the egg-cabinet are more romantic than those of the stamp-album; but it does not follow that one pursuit is more intel

lectual than the other. The instinct of annexation and the excitement of competition are in most cases the ruling incentive. Science must be served by complete collections in museums, but most private cabinets of eggs serve no higher purpose than recreation, and for one amateur oologist who has by observation contributed a single fact to the knowledge of natural history, there are hundreds who affect no perceptible result except the impoverishment of the native fauna. It is devoutly to be wished that they would direct their attention to old china or mineralogy.

Even more mischievous is the eagerness for having stuffed specimens. It is a just joy that the owner of land feels when he has become the temporary host of some rare visitant, which has lighted in his woods or on his waters; and if he is a true lover of nature, the very last act he will dream of is to aim at it anything more deadly than a spy-glass. For him it is reward enough to record the fact, with satisfactory evidence of manner, time, and place. This ought always to be done; but too often it is otherwise. The eagle draws notice to himself by his noble flight and bearing; the bittern is betrayed by his resounding boom; the hoopoe or golden oriole are irresistible in their gay plumage: season after season one has to read of the cruel reception awarded to such stragglers; and it is deplorable vanity, not patriotic pride, with which the victims are afterwards displayed, as if their fate reflected lustre on the local magnate. long as this is so, the professional collector will be on the alert, and Lord Lilford has drawn timely attention to an additional incentive which is offered to him.

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