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embodying a letter to ‘The Times,’ aptly bears out my previous 
remarks on the wholesale destruction recently dealt out to certain 
species. 
‘““No words can convey any adequate idea of the wanton, wicked 
cruelty perpetrated by these ruthless slayers of unoffending birds. 
Broken-winged birds are abandoned, and drift away to perish by slow 
degrees ; badly wounded birds are allowed to flutter and struggle in 
the bottom of the boat, their sufferings unheeded and uncared for ; 
while many fearfully hurt manage to reach the shore to die in 
lingering agony: and, lamentable to say, all this butchery is committed 
for no good purpose. We find a letter in ‘ The Times’ headed ‘A Plea 
for the Kittiwake,’ in which it is remarked that ‘some months ago a 
contributor to a popular journal of natural history, writing from 
Lincolnshire, disclosed the fact that London and provincial dealers 
now give one shilling per head for every ‘ White Gull’ forwarded— 
that one man (a stranger drawn thither for profitable occupation) 
boasted of having last year killed with his own gun at Flamborough 
Head 4000 of these gulls—and that another sea-fowl shooter had 
an order from a London house for 10,000, all for the ‘ plume trade.’ 
During the present summer,’ it is added, ‘one of these plumassiers 
has visited various breeding-stations of the Kittiwake in Scotland, 
and laid his plans for having supplies of birds sent to him. At Ailsa 
Crag alone, he gave an order for 1000 Gulls per week, and there 
stated that he was prepared to take any quantity. To meet this 
demand the tacksman of the rock spread his nets while the birds 
were sitting on their newly hatched young, which were left in 
hundreds to perish on the ledges.’ By reference to the letter from 
which the above is extracted, and which appeared in ‘The Times’ for 
August 21st, it will be seen that an Act has this year received the 
Royal Assent for the preservation of sea-fowl in the Isle of Man, 
and that its preamble states that ‘the said birds are considered of 
great importance to the fishermen in guiding them to shoals of fish, 
and also for sanitary purposes by removing offal of fish from the 
harbours and shores,’ ” 
Again, in a communication to the ‘ Zoologist’ for January 1869, 
Mr. John Cordeaux says :—‘ The following paragraph is copied from 
the ‘Guardian’ of November 18, 1868. Comment is unnecessary. 
‘On a strip of coast 18 miles long, near Flamborough Head, 107,250 
sea-birds were destroyed by pleasure parties in four months, 12,000 
by men who shoot them for their feathers to adorn women’s hats, 
and 79,500 young birds died of starvation in emptied nests. Com- 
mander Knocker there stationed, who reports these facts, saw two 
boats loaded above the gunwales with dead birds; and one party of 
eight guns killed 1100 in a week.’” 
Nature on the other hand herself at times effects similar wholesale 
destruction ; thus asevere winter may prove fatal to many thousands 
of the feathered creation: in support of this assertion I annex some 
extracts from various sources, Under the heading “ Severity of the 
Weather ” we read in ‘ Land and Water’ for January 26, 1867. 
““We receive from yarious parts of the country accounts of the 
