4 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
If I thought there was any real or necessary connection 
between a love of egg-hunting—yes, and egg-collecting, too,— 
and cruelty, I would not say another word for it or about it. 
But I am sure that the real lover of birds and their nests and 
egos is not the boy who is chargeable with those torn and ruined 
- nests—‘“ destroyed” as they may well be styled—which grieve one 
as he walks along the lanes and hedge sides. If the nest is taken, 
or rudely and roughly handled, or the eggs all plundered, there is 
cruelty: for in the one case, the poor parent-birds are warned by 
their instinct, if not their intelligence, to forsake their treasured 
charge; in the other, they suffer from pitiless robbery of what 
they most love. But if the parent bird be not rudely and 
repeatedly driven from her nest,—if the nest be not pulled out 
of shape, or the containing bushes or environing shelter be not 
wilfully or carelessly disturbed—if two or three eggs are still 
left for her to incubate, there is, so far as human ‘observation 
can reach; no pain, or concern, or uneasiness, to the little owners 
from the abstraction of one egg or more, and, therefore, of course, 
no cruelty in the abstraction. The legitimate pursuit of sport in 
the stubbles and turnip fields, or on the open moor, does not 
differ more widely from the crue! proceedings of the cold-blooded, 
hard-hearted slaughterer of his dozensof Rock-birds (many of which 
are always left to die lingeringly and miserably), than the object 
or manner of action of the true lover of birds and their ways 
and nests cnd eggs, from the ruthless destruction of every nest 
and its contents which may happen to be met with hy some young 
loutish country savage. 
Again, a few words more, and this time about classification. 
I should like, if such a course were profitable, or even practi- 
cable, to make just such a classification as an active, sharp-eyed, 
observant, persevering nest-hunter would, as it were, find ready- 
