The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3545, 18 November 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

The Small Birds Nuisance Act is now in force, and for general information we publish it here in full: —1. Tbe short I title of this Act is " The Small Birds Nuisance Act, 1882." 2. In this Act the word ,"' birds " means any birds not for the time being coming within the operation of any Act in force relating to the protection of animals ; and the words " governing body " mean and include any County Council, Road Board, Borough Council, or Town District Board. 3. Notwithstanding anything in any other Act contained, any governing body may from time to time by an ordinary resolution thereof, apply so much as it shall think fit out of its general funds towards tbe destruction oi any kind or kinds of birds which, by their excessive increase, have become, or threaten to become, in-μ-irious to crops of any kind, for the purpose of reducing the numbers of euch birds to such an extent aa may be necessary for the protection of such crops : Provided always that the sura or sums so applied in any one year shall not I exceed t\ie amount \rt\\s\i m\gh\. \>e tawed by the levy of a rate of three half-pence in tbe pound on the rateable value of any riding or ridings of any county, or on the rateable value of any road district to which such rate may be limited, or by the levy of a rate of one half-penny in the pound, if such rate shall be general over the entire colony, or by the levy of a rate of one half-penny in the pound on the rateable value of any borough or by the le?y of a rate of one penny in the pound on the rateable value of any town district. 4. All such moneys may be spent, in such manner as the governing body expending the same shall think most expedient for attaining the object in view, within the limits of the county, riding, road district, borough, or town district over which such body has jurisdiction. 5. For the purposes and subject to the limitation herein specified, any governing Jbody may levy any special rate for the purpose of raising funds to be applied towards the carrying out the purposes of this Act whenever such governing body shall have received a petition signed by a majority of ratepayers within the") county, riding, road district, borough, or town district over which such governing body has jurisdiction, praying that such rate shall be levied. 6. No poison for the purposes of this Act shall be laid within a lessdistance than two hundred and twenty yards of an inhabited houee." It wiil be seen from the above that the Act haa been framed for the special destruction of.small birds in the country districts. It leaves the town birds—the impudentjjmischievous, grain-eating house sparrow — alone, because in all well regulated boroughs the use of fire arms is disallowed, and poison may not be laid within two hundred and twenty yards of an inhabited house, and for traps and. snares the sparrow cares nothing. In the country insectiverous birds are as numerous as'the grain-eating birds, and both descriptions would fall alike victims to poison. The farmer does not know his best friends. He can afford a little corn and some fruit for the sake of the good the birds*[do him ; but he forgets the ravafces'ofjcaterpillars in the past before the birds were imported, and he only sees feathered flocks in amongst his wheat and oats. He thinks those flocks of birds are only in amongst his crops to eat the graiD, and he will not take the trouble to find out whether they are there for grubs or for corn. The Act for which he clamored is calculated, however, to do him little good, while if actively enforced it may bring upon him the forgotten pests of former years that, at least, made farming too risky a business to be indulged in in Hawke's Bay. The towns will supply him with all the eparrows to keep him employed in carrying out the provisions of the Act, while he will have lost his faithful allies in the indiscriminate slaughter of friends and foes.