138 PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



the so-called " sportsmen " of London and Lancashire to 

 the Isle of Wight and Flamborough Head, where one of 

 the amusements held out is the shooting of these harmless 

 birds. But it is not merely the bird that is shot that 

 perishes — difficult as it is to say where cruelty begins or 

 ends — ^tliat alone would not be cruelty in my opinion. 

 The bird that is shot is a parent — it has its young at 

 home waiting for the food it is bringing far away from 

 the Dogger Bank or the Chops of the Channel — we take 

 advantage of its most sacred instincts to waylay it, and 

 in depriving the parent of life, we doom the helpless 

 offspring to the most miserable of deaths, that by 

 hunger. If this is not cruelty, what is ? Can men 

 blaze away hour after hour at these wretched inoffensive 

 birds and call it " Sport " without being morally the 

 worse for it ? We thank God that we are not as Spaniards 

 are, who gloat over the brutalities of a bull-fight. Why, 

 here in dozens of places around our own coasts, we have 

 annually an amount of agony inflicted on thousands of 

 our fellow-creatures, to which the torture of a dozen 

 horses and bulls in a ring are as nothing. Surely I may 

 be pardoned if I indulge in a bit of sentiment here ? I 

 began by deprecating over-coloured statements, or I 

 might dwell on this ghastly picture much longer, but 

 there is one painful feature which it is said has been 

 lately superadded. The modern fashion of ladies wear- 

 ing plumes in their hats is said to give an impetus to the 

 slaughter. This rests on good authority. Mr. Cordeaux 

 writes of the Kittiwake at Flamborough {Zoologist, 

 p. 1009) : " This graceful and trustful bird is threatened 

 with speedy extinction at this famous breeding-place ; 

 thousands have been shot in the last two years to supply 

 the ' plume trade.' The London and provincial dealers 

 now give one shilling per head for every White Gull 

 forwarded ; and the slaughter of these poor birds during 

 the season (the breeding season, remember) affords 

 almost constant and profitable employment to three or 

 four guns. One man, a recent arrival at Flamborough, 

 boasted to me that he had in one year killed, with his 



