Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

THE WORKING OF THE WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACT 5
new as
a bird, so far as the writer's experience goes, quite
a breeder on Tentsmuir.
While the Act of 1894 has thus proved
itself to be of
much value and efficacy, there are one or two points where,
in scope or in working, it may be extended and improved.
A little is yet wanted to enable those of us who have no
sympathy with what sometimes passes for ' oology '
nowadays,
to check its ill effects. Great sympathy may indeed
be felt with egg-collecting where the collecting
is done by
the collector himself, and done, as it
quite well may be done,
so as to cause inappreciable harm to the birds themselves ;
but with the taking of entire clutches of eggs, or, worse and
worse, of several clutches of eggs of the same bird, the writer
at least has absolutely no sympathy
purpose would seem to be served ;
at all. No scientific
indeed, practically all that
can be known about British oology is known already ; and
for purposes of research large, if not complete, collections
can be studied in the museums which exist in most of the
chief towns in the kingdom. Certainly the pleasure of
searching for and finding the nest of a new bird is great,
and when the nest has been found it can do little or no
harm if one or two of the eggs are taken taken, perhaps,
more as a memento than as specimens of great scientific
value ;
but surely the rest of the clutch might be left alone
to hatch in peace, so that the pleasure of searching for several
nests of the same kind (and of leaving them undisturbed
when found !) may be enjoyed during succeeding years.
While, however, with personal egg-collecting
it is
perhaps
unnecessary,as it would certainly be difficult, for the Legislature
to interfere, there is another method of egg-collecting, carried
on in another way altogether, of which it is hard to speak in
measured terms. This system
is as follows :
A, a dealer in
some large town, sends out circulars broadcast, offering to
pay cash down for eggs of almost any kind, whether they
'
are protected ' under the Wild Birds Acts, or '
game
'
within the meaning of the Poaching Prevention Acts, or
at all. There is much reason to
unfortunately not protected
fear that there is
generally B, a malefactor ready to fulfil
A's requirements to the letter. Presumably there is somewhere
or other a C who considers himself a 'collector,' and