200 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
watch and bring to justice, just as we do any other class 
of criminals. 
“Some very good people are extremely careless about 
this, and would arrest a hungry man for stealing a bottle 
of milk from a doorstep, and yet even buy game from 
poachers whom they knew had taken it against the law; 
doing this is a far more serious offence, for one of our Wise 
Men has said that wild birds are not the property of the 
individual, but of the Commonwealth.” 
“T wish these birds need never be shot; don’t you?” 
said Sarah Barnes. ‘They are much prettier than some 
song-birds, and I’m sure that Bob-white’s call is Just as 
pleasant to hear as a song.” 
“Yes, Sarah, I should like to protect the game-birds 
also, unless in cases where people, living away from places 
where other food can be had, are really hungry. But 
there are two sides to this question, and the Kind Hearts’ 
Club must always try to look at both, so as to be sure that 
in being just to one, the other may not be misjudged. 
All over the country there are hundreds of men who, for 
nearly all the year, are tied to desks in offices, and their 
heads are weary and their bodies cramped. The love of 
hunting is born in man, probably an inheritance from 
his ancestors, who hunted for their living, just as the 
bird inherits the instincts of migration from its parents 
and performs the journeys even when there is no 
need. 
“This love of hunting leads the men out into the woods 
for a few weeks, or even days, each year, and, besides the 
hunting, they meet Nature face to face, and, whether they 
know it or not, come back better able to take up the work 
