§ Provisions of Section 43 of the Diseases of Animals Act, 1894, applied with Modifications.
§ (2) Where a person is seen or found committing, or is reasonably suspected of being engaged in committing, an offence against this Act, a constable may without warrant, stop, detain, and search him, and if his name and address are not known to the constable, and such person fails to give them to the satisfaction of the constable, the constable may, without warrant, apprehend him; and the constable may, whether so stopping or detaining or apprehending the person or not, detain, and examine any bird, nest, egg, gun, or other instrument, vehicle, boat, or thing to which the offence or suspected offence relates, and require the same to be forthwith taken back to or into any place or district wherefrom or where about it was unlawfully removed, and execute and enforce that requisition.
§ VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON moved to omit from paragraph (2) the words "require the same to be forthwith taken back to or into any place or district wherefrom or whereabout it was lawfully removed, and execute and enforce that requisition;" and to insert "may seize and pending prosecution retain any such bird, nest or egg." The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I placed this Amendment on the Paper because I found, on looking closely into it after what the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, said on the Second Reading, that the provision giving powers to the police, which is taken from the Diseases of Animals Act, contained some words which were not applicable to the 1405 purposes of the present Bill. Under the Diseases of Animals Act, if breaches of the law take place the police very naturally have power to take the animals and convey them back to the place from which they should not have been removed. There is no object in taking back to the nest birds' eggs which have been illegally taken from the nest. They are wanted for production in court. Lord Crawford raised the point as to whether boats would not be interfered with, and I, therefore, propose to omit those words and to insert the words on the Paper. I propose to omit certain words and substitute these: "May seize and pending prosecution retain any such bird, nest or egg." That removes any danger of the boat being confiscated, and does not affect the purpose desired by the Bill.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 17, leave out from ("and") to the end of subsection (2) and insert ("may seize and pending prosecution retain any such bird nest or egg").—(Viscount Grey of Fallodon.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.