Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/253

Rh But why agonise our feelings with things of the past? The Sea-Birds Act, though repealed, as was the later Wild-fowl Act of 1872, was, after many struggles, replaced by a better and more sweeping measure, and all birds are now protected. Are they? It is just because what Newton foresaw has taken place—the substitution of a nominally better Act with much wider scope, framed by men who were either indifferent or not disinterested, has failed in a great measure to preserve those species which were most in danger. It is true to say that the Act of 1869, converted into that of 1880, has saved the kittiwake, but it has not converted the sinners nor roused a better spirit in the general public. Egg-snatching on the Yorkshire cliffs is still a trade, and though under proper regulations it would not do serious damage to the various species which still nest there in large numbers, it has the result of delaying the nesting period and turning the young out at the end of the close season when still unable to escape the guns of the "sportsmen." I have seen in early autumn a boat load of immature kittiwakes and other gulls brought in at Flamborough; I have seen young loafers, men with money, no doubt, lounging about the jetty at Knott End and shooting at every unfortunate young gull or other bird which ventured within range.

"Would you stop the poor man's sport?" is a common cry; yes, and the rich man's too if he is endangering the existence of a national asset.

What happened with the Bill of 1872 is this: it was made too all-embracing to be functionable. After a British Association Close-time Committee had carefully considered all points, the Bill was framed and passed without consulting any real ornithologists. Newton, writing to his brother, says: "Mr. Herbert, on the 21st of June last, laid a cuckoo's egg in the carefully built nest of the British Association Committee, and the produce