Cruelty to Birds 223 



and thousands on the island of Capri alone thus fall 

 a prey to the demands of London, Paris, and other 

 poulterers. 



But it is not quails only that are caught. 



It was on my return to Naples on board a steamer 

 that I noticed a large sack lying at the feet of a rough- 

 looking Neapolitan ; a sack of a most lively nature, 

 for the whole of it was in motion, as if it were full 

 of rats. 



The neck was tightly secured with string. 



Therefore, to gratify curiosity, I asked the owner 

 what was inside. 



" Turtle doves," was the answer. 



Yes ! it was crammed with turtle doves ; the 

 European species, which arrives as a bird of passage in 

 England in May, and whose soft coo blends so charm- 

 ingly with the note of the cuckoo and the songs of 

 other birds. 



I always associate it with bright days in June, 

 when the great white clouds are floating lazily in the 

 sky, and the scythes are sharpened for the mowing of 

 grass in fields and meadows. Yet how many of these 

 pretty summer doves of ours are deprived of their lives 

 by being intercepted on their journey. 



And swallows, too, which are killed on the French 

 and Italian coasts, when they are exhausted on migra- 

 tion ; killed in order to supply women with ornaments 

 for their hats and bonnets. 



Amongst Eastern nations there is, at least in Egypt 

 and the Soudan, a curious apathy with regard to an 

 interest in bird life, at any rate amongst the poorer 



