38 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



engage in the wholesale massacre of the birds on the 

 cliffs and the sea. Nor was it confined to the trippers 

 from London, Manchester, Birmingham, and other 

 great centres of population; the fascination of it 

 drew men of all classes, including those who annually- 

 shot (and even owned) the moors and coverts. For 

 in June and July the grouse and partridge and phea- 

 sant were not yet ready for killing, and it was great 

 fun in the meantime to have a few days with the 

 gannets, terns, kittiwakes, guillemots, and other 

 auks. It was nothing to them that the birds were 

 breeding, that the result of this wholesale slaughter 

 would be the extirpation of the multitudes of sea 

 birds which people the cliffs before the century was 

 out, since they were no man's birds — only God's. 



Happily there were a few men in England who had 

 the courage to lift up their voices against this hideous 

 iniquity, who eventually succeeded in getting an 

 Act for its suppression. Thus it came about that 

 our sea birds were saved and we have them still, 

 and that we were given courage to go on and try to 

 save our land birds as well. 



And with this business we are still occupied, fight- 

 ing to save our country's bird life from destruction — 

 how strange that so long and strenuous a fight should 

 be necessary to secure such an object! But that it 

 is a winning fight becomes more evident as the years 

 go on. There is now a public feeling on our side: 

 we are not a brutish nation ready to stamp out all 

 beauty from the earth so long as the killing and stamp- 

 ing out processes minister to our pleasure or profit. 



