“First, there are those who destroy for destruction’s sake; the boy who ravages the hedgerows in spring and delights in catapults, air-guns, and stones at all times; the lout with a gun; and the cockney sportsman. They are responsible for a vast amount of cruelty, especially to nesting birds and nestlings; for the killing of various home-birds and migrants, and for the senseless shooting of sea-birds and occasionally of rare visitants. “Secondly, the bird-catcher, responsible for the decrease of all those birds sought for caging, such as Goldfinch, Linnet, Siskin, Lark, etc. This class, like the first-named, requires dealing with, chiefly because of the intolerable amount of ill-treatment involved by the methods employed in the catching, transit, and sale of wild birds. The destruction of the useful Lapwing, and of the Skylark for the table, is also a point in need of attention; and in the same category may be placed the so-called sparrow-clubs, which encourage the indiscriminate killing of many species of small birds. “Thirdly, the gamekeeper, responsible for the extinction, or extreme rarity of most of our large birds, especially predatory species and uncommon visitors. “Fourthly, the private collector with a craze for rare British-taken birds and eggs, or, in the case of the humbler persecutor of beautiful species, for something to put in a glass case. “Fifthly, the trader and the feathered woman, jointly responsible for the devastation wrought among the loveliest birds of all lands.” We have included a few useful species here, which are only visitants to our country, but which, with more protection, might remain for part of the year with us regularly. CHAPTER I. USEFUL OR HARMFUL? The Hungarian Central Office for Ornithology was instituted in 1804, in accordance with a scheme submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture by Mr. Otto Herman, then a member of the Hungarian Parliament. The rapid progress of economical affairs in the nineteenth century, particularly in its second half, had a perceptible influence upon the position occupied by the bird and insect fauna, a change which was felt in agriculture, and led to the formation of a new branch of science--ornithologia oeconomica. The Hungarian Central Office for Ornithology took the new branch in hand, after its transfer from the sphere of the Ministry of Public Instruction to that of the Ministry of Agriculture, where M. de Darányi assigned an important place to practical experimental methods as a complement to strict science.