LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYMy Lords, the Bill to which I am going to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading is the same Bill as your Lordships passed last year. It is probable that few of your Lordships have suffered from the increased scarcity of hares. Indeed, one of the noble Lords who took part in amending this Bill has told me that since the passing of the Ground Game Act, he has found that the number of hares on his property has very much increased: and my own experience has been similar. But your Lordships must have heard from your neighbours, and read in the sporting papers, of the great diminution of hares throughout the country. They have almost disappeared from Devonshire, and I hear the same complaint from Lincolnshire. If your Lordships give a Second Reading to this Bill, as it is the same Bill that passed through the Standing Committee, perhaps it would be your pleasure that it should not again go through the Standing Committee, but that it should go before a Committee of the whole House.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Lord Stanley of Alderley.)
§ VISCOUNT SIDMOUTHI do not know whether my noble Friend has considered the advisability of amending the Bill; but there is one portion of it which I think requires amendment, and that is the portion of the Bill which makes it penal for any person to have a dead or wounded hare in his possession. I think it would 411 be very hard upon any of my noble Friends' gamekeepers, who might happen to find hares under such conditions, if a policeman should pounce upon them and take them up-under those clauses.
§ On Motion agreed to.
§ Bill Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.