News and Views

Abstract

THE Wild Birds Protection Bill is dead, after the second reading had given nromise of a safe passage through the House of mons. In the opinion of those best competen to judge, it was a measure designed to give better protection to British birds than even the and scattered Acts, which it was to supersede had done. But it has been killed by slogans devised by well-intentioned but less well-informed propagandists. It was called a “Rare Birds Protection Bill,” yet it protected every bird in the country; it was sneered at because it gave different degrees of protection to different birds, but so long as some birds we persecuted and some are not, it is reasonable that the degree of protection should vary; it was said that the birds would be better off without the Bill, bxvt the statement betrays lack of knowledge of the operation of the present Acts and the particular points on which experience has proved them to bo weakest; it was said that public opinion was against the Bill; oon the contrary, the informed public were in favour of the Bill. The death of the Bill is to be regretted by all interested in the effective protection of birds in Great Britain, the more so as its disappearance is due to the blind faith of certain members of Parliament in the propaganda of malcontents.