21 o Cruelty to Birds 



At Eton in my boyhood it was the fashion to do 

 so, and of course created rivalry, so that each boy strove 

 to outdo the other in both quantity and quality of 

 specimens. And there sat an old woman, almost 

 sacred in memory to all old Etonians of her reign, 

 which was a long one. 



Old Mother Lipscombe on her camp stool, with 

 wrinkled face, blear eyes, and croaking voice. In 

 form not unlike a gigantic toad ; a much worn and 

 tattered bonnet on her ancient pate. 



Day by day in the summer term she squatted near 

 the entrance to the school yard, or by the wall beneath 

 the trees, a pile of boxes at her side on the one hand, 

 and " -SWrberries and cherries" for the "gentlemen" 

 on the other. 



" Any fresh eggs to-day, Mrs. Lipscombe ? " came 

 the query from a group of boys ; and the old lady 

 would proceed with palsied fingers (that was in the 

 seventies) to lift the lids from off the boxes to 

 disclose her treasures. 



A daily supply of the eggs of chaffinches, bull- 

 finches, goldfinches, thrushes, blackbirds, wrens, tit- 

 mice of different sorts, willow warblers, reed buntings, 

 corncrakes, cuckoos, wrynecks, and others, must have 

 considerably diminished the ranks of these poor birds ; 

 with Mother Lipscombe's myrmidons scouring the 

 country side for the space of several square miles. 



And a very large quantity of the eggs finally 

 came to nothing. Now, I believe, the birds are very 

 much more protected in the neighbourhood of Eton 

 than formerly, and I trust it is the case. When a boy 



