Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

6 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY
who is
ready to pay A a still larger sum for his ill-gotten
plunder. A clause in a new Wild Birds Act which would
render it an offence for any one, either from within a protected
area, or from outside it, to solicit the taking of eggs of
protected birds there, might do something to check what is at
present a serious and a growing evil, while over the interference
with the nefarious system in all its branches it would
only be possible to exult. It is earnestly to be hoped that
when the whole matter comes to be reconsidered in the light
of a few years' experience of the working of the present
Act, this point may be taken up and dealt with.
The expense entailed, under the terms of the present
Act, on any community which takes steps to put
it in
operation is another matter which might be considered.
The provisions of the Act itself are as follows :
SECTION 4. (i) The Council of an administrative county shall
in every year give public notice of any Order under this Act which
is in force in any place within their county during the three weeks
preceding the commencement of the period of the year during which
the Order operates.
(2) Public notice under this Section shall be given
(a) As regards each place in which an Order operates, by
advertising the order in two local newspapers circulating
in or near that place ;
(/>) By fixing notices of the Order in conspicuous spots
within and near each place in which the Order operates ;
and
(c) In such other manner as the Secretary of State may
direct, or as the Council may think expedient, with a
view to making the Order known to the public.
The result of these provisions
is that the whole text of
every Order issued by the Secretary for Scotland in terms of
the Act, with all its lists and schedules, has not only to be
inserted in extenso in the advertisement columns of two newspapers
several times over ;
it must also be printed on posters
and exhibited on notice boards,
'
in conspicuous places within
or near each place in which the Order operates,' during three
whole weeks in each year. The cost of erecting the notice
boards (and of replacing those of them which were defaced
or broken up by presumably aggrieved egg-stealers) must