BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 135 



are yearly sickened at the slaughter of their loved 

 songsters, I would humbly suggest that there is 

 a simpler, more practical means of ending this 

 dispute, which has surely lasted long enough. It 

 goes without saying that this bird's music is 

 eminently pleasing to most persons, that even as 

 the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold, its 

 silvery aerial sounds rained down so abundantly 

 from heaven are delightful and exhilarating to 

 all of us, or at all events, to so large a majority 

 that the minority are not entitled to considera- 

 tion. One person in five thousand, or perhaps 

 in ten thousand, might be found to say that the 

 lark singing in blue heaven affords him no 

 pleasure. This being so, and ours being a demo- 

 cratic country in which the will or desire of the 

 many is or may be made the law of the land, it 

 is surely only right and reasonable that lovers of 

 lark^s flesh should be prevented from gratifying 

 their taste at the cost of the destruction of so 

 loved a bird, that they should be made to content 

 themselves with woodcock, and snipe on toast, 

 and golden plover, and grouse and blackcock, and 

 any other bird of delicate flavor which does not, 



