helpless young to death. When other species become really noxious it will be time enough to treat them in the same way. As a rule, the harm done by birds popularly but falsely supposed to live on food fishes, and by birds of prey, is grossly exaggerated. Birds and beasts of prey often do good service in keeping up a breed by killing off the weaklings.

12. It would be well worth while to keep the Inspector on for the eight months between the 1st of September, 1913, and the 1st of May, 1914, so that he and the Provincial warden might make a thorough investigation of conditions all the year round, inland as well as on the coast, and of the mammals as well as of the birds. One man from each of the five local boats and two men from the Inspector's boat would make seven assistants already trained in conservation. They would have to be paid enough to counterbalance their strong desire for the rare but sometimes relatively enormous profits of "furring". Perhaps $50 a man a month would do, the men to find themselves in everything, as during the summer. This, for seven men for eight months, would be $2,800. The incidental expenses and Inspector's salary would bring the total up to $5,000. The Inspector cannot be too good a man. He should be a good leader as well as a trained naturalist. The Province should send him the best warden it can find, to act as his chief assistant. After a year's work, afloat and ashore, in summer and winter, with birds and mammals, he ought to be able to make a comprehensive and unbiassed report, which, by itself, would repay the Commission for introducing conservation into such a suitable area. Zoogeographic maps and charts would be an indispensable part of this report.

To sum up:—

I beg to propose that the Commission should bring the Canadian Labrador under conservation by protecting bird life on the coast for a term of five years, as an experimental investigation, and by examining, for one year, the whole question of the birds and mammals, inland as well as on the seabord, and in winter as well as summer. The cost of the first would be $5,000 a year for five years = $25,000. The cost of the second would be $5,000 for one year only. The total cost would be $30,000.

I would never have ventured to suggest this plan to the Commission if I had not been encouraged by one of your own most valued members, Dr Robertson. But as soon as he told me what your powers were I saw clearly that, in this particular case, the Commission and the Canadian Labrador were each exactly suited to the other.

Under all these circumstances I have no hesitation in making the strongest possible appeal for action before it is too late. The time has come when the seabird life must be either made or marred for ever. And I would ask you to remember what seabird conservation means down there. It means fresh food, the only kind the people ever get, apart from fish. It means new business, if the eiders are once made safe in sanctuaries; for we now import our eider down from points outside of Canada. And it means the quickening of every human interest, once you encourage the people to join you in this excellently practical form of "Neighbourhood Improvement".

There is another and very important point, which I discussed at considerable length in my Address, but to which I return here, because it can only be settled by a body of men, who, like this Commission, are national trustees. This point is that certain parts of Labrador are bound to become ideal public playgrounds, if their wild life is only saved in time. The common conception of Labrador as being inaccessibly remote is entirely wrong. It is accessible all round a coast line of 3000 miles at the proper season and with proper care; and its vast peninsula lies straight between the British Islands and our own North West. So there is nothing absurd in expecting people to come to Labrador to-morrow when they are going to Spitzbergen, far north of the Arctic Circle to-day. Of course,