44 THE PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS IN ESSEX.
found in half an hour or so, and the birds themselves are very unwary in the
nesting season."
In view of considerations such as the above the Council of the
Essex Field Club addressed the following petition to the Essex
County Council:
TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL OF ESSEX.
The Protection of Wild Birds.
The Petition of the Essex Field Club.
Under an Act of Parliament (57 and 58 Vic., c. 24) which received the Royal
assent on 20th July, 1894, entitled "An Act to amend the Wild Birds Protection
Act, 1880," it is now in the power of the County Council to apply for an order of
the Home Secretary to take one or other of the two courses proposed, namely, an
order prohibiting—
(1.) The taking of eggs of any named species ; or
(2.) The taking any eggs within a certain specified area.
The Essex Field Club beg to request the County Council of Essex to apply to
the Secretary of State to order that the Act shall be set in force in respect to
Section 2 (1) of the Act, which reads as follows :
" The taking or destroying of wild birds' eggs in any year or years in any
place or places within that County.''
And, in this case, the Field Club respectfully suggests that application be made
for protecting the following specified and well-defined area along the coast of
Essex within the jurisdiction of the said Council—see Section 2 (3),
The sea coast, sand hills, dunes, waste lands, foreshore, warrens, marshes,
saltings, situate between the sea and the land side of the sea wall, embank-
ment, ditch, quick fence, or any other artificial boundary separating the same
from the cultivated land.
There are several species of birds, as the Sheldrake, Sea-pie or Oyster-catcher,
Ringed-dotterel, Sandwich, Arctic, Common, and Lesser Terns, Redshank,
which formerly frequented the coast of Essex in the nesting season in some
numbers, but at the present time are verging on extinction, and in some cases it
is doubtful if this point has not already been reached.
The cause of this falling away of their number and threatened extinction as
nesting species is the persistent disturbance and plunder of their nests in the
breeding season by excursionists to the coasts, and largely by men and boys who
now make a regular trade of taking the eggs to sell to visitors at the watering
places, bird stuffers, and egg collectors. In recent years this mischief has become
greatly intensified.
The protection of the area thus specified would not interfere with any private
or vested interests, as the land is wild and uncultivated ; nor would it in the
slightest degree encourage the undue increase of any species which are supposed
to be inimical to the cultivation of the soil, all the species named above being
coast feeders ; and the few small birds not named and nesting in the same area
—as the Wheatear, Stonechat, Whinchat, and Meadow Pipit, along with a few
Summer Warblers—being exclusively insect feeders.
The 1st of April to the 1st of July would cover the period during which the
eggs are deposited and incubated.
The Essex Field Club respectfully trust that the Council will make the