Bird Murder on the Bass Rock and A ilsa Crais: 



399 



in guiding them to shoals of fish, and also for 

 sanitary purposes by removing oftal of fish 

 from our shores and harbours. There is ap- 

 parently no Act of the kind in Scotland, and 

 so these birds are being slain in such num- 

 bers as forbids the hope of a breeding stock 

 being left. The plumassiers will ere long 

 exterminate the gulls. They give is. a 

 head for them ; and one enterprizing dealer 

 recently gave an order at Ailsa Craig for 

 one thousand kittiwakes per week I What 

 power of breeding could stand out against 

 such wholesale destruction ? In a letter to a 

 contemporary we see that one man boasted 

 of having killed last year with his own gun at 

 Flamborough Head four thousand of these 

 gulls, and that another sea-fowl butcher had 

 an order from a London house for ten thou- 

 sand, all for the " plume trade." To meet the 

 great demand from London, we are told that 

 the tacksman of Ailsa Craig spread his nets 

 while the birds were sitting on the newly 

 hatched young, which were left in hundreds 

 to perish on the ledges — most truly a killing 

 of the goose for the sake of the golden egg. 



The British Association has taken this 

 matter in hand. Mr Newton came forward 

 with a still more forcible exposition of the 

 views of Mr Tristram than was indicated last 

 year. He contends that birds of prey are the 

 sanitary police of nature, and that if these 

 birds had existed in their old strength, they 

 would have stamped out the disease among 

 the grouse as the Order in Council stamped 

 out the cattle plague. There was an interest- 

 ing discussion on the question of what 

 we designate " the balance of nature." Mr 

 Buckland defended the rat as a sanitary 

 animal of great value, and said it ought 

 not to be exterminated e\en to provide 

 gloves for ladies ; and as to " gull mur- 

 der," Miss Becker, of Manchester, said that 

 " No lady would willingly wear the feather 

 of a bird that was destroyed in the act of 

 feeding its young. Ladies should be in- 

 structed on these and other subjects, and 

 should be allowed to meet with the other sex 

 on equal terms, not as listeners only, in the 

 discussion and acquisition of the various 

 branches of knowledge in which they were all 



interested, instead of meeting, as they did, 

 with discouragement. If that plan were 

 pursued, naturalists would have no reason to 

 complain of the conduct of ladies." 



^\'e have so recently given our opinion 

 upon the grouse disease and the question of 

 moor economy, that we have no great desire 

 to " hark back " upon it at present, except to 

 shew that the inconsiderate destruction of 

 birds of prey by gamekeepers and others is 

 not an unmixed good ; indeed, some men 

 say that it is to the ofticiousness of the game- 

 keepers that we owe the grouse disease. 

 They are generally paid so much a head for 

 the destruction of what are called ''vennin," 

 and, of course, they are desirous of swelling 

 this extra amount which falls to be added to 

 their wages. The Rev. Mr Tristram last year 

 told us, at Dundee, a few plain truths about 

 the consequences of destroying the hawks. 

 We had, before he spoke, expressed a similar 

 opinion, that the hawks and falcons did 

 very good service in attacking and killing off 

 birds that would have proved very bad breed- 

 ing stock. To the absence of these birds of 

 prey much evil was attributed. If, as nature 

 evidently intended, these keen-eyed birds had 

 been allowed to swoop down on the weaker 

 members of the grouse family, the disease 

 would have been much milder than it was, for 

 it is only by the action of such birds of prey 

 as have been named that the race is kept at 

 a healthy standard. So much shooting leaves 

 upon the moors many helpless birds ; these, 

 it is fair to assume, cannot breed a healthy 

 progeny ; and as weak birds are more liable 

 to disease than strong ones, ergo Ave have the 

 case proved. 



We shall not, like some of the savants at 

 Norwich, mourn over the disappearance of 

 the great copper moth, although that fact 

 illustrates the position we take up, and supplies 

 also an apt illustration of what we have been 

 lately arguing about "over -fishing" and "over- 

 shooting." Our desire is that all food pro- 

 ducts, even when, as in the case of the grouse, 

 they assume the guise of luxuries, should be 

 dealt with according to the laws of nature. 

 Of course nature never intended that every 

 young grouse should live, or that every sal- 



