BIRD LAW. • [To VIZ EDITOR. OF TILE "SPFCTAT SIR, — Is
it to be inferred from the review or the Wil,1 Birds' Protection Acts" in the Spectator of April Nth, that Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire, is under protection for three years from September, 1895 ? It is not quite clear whether the " protec- tion of Wicken Fen " applies only to the birds of the district, or whether " protection " means that no sedge can be cut there for three years from September, 1895, and that the fen is to be left in its natural condition for that period. In the latter ease, the local insects and plants, as well as the birds, will have a chance of recovering themselves and maintaining an existence. The author of the review refers to Wicken Fen as " the last home of the swallow-tailed butterfly." This statement is hardly accurate. It is true, no doubt, as to the fen district of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Lincolnshire; but the swallow-tail (Papilio nzachaon) still exists over a wide range of country in the scattered portions of fen in the Norfolk Broads. This species has been observed by the writer in the neighbourhood of Wroxham Broad, Hoveton Fen, Horning Fen, Ranworth Fen, and in other parts of the Broads to the north-east of Horning as far as Statham. Although not occurring in any one locality in the Broads in such numbers as at Wicken Fen, the swallow- tail has apparently a better chance of surviving in Norfolk than in Cambridgeshire, because its range in the former county extends over a large area instead of being confined to a small fen of from three hundred to four hundred acres
as in Cambridgeshire.—I am, Sir, &c., H. G.
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