86 DYER'S HOLLOW. 



have regretted their work ; but I should have 

 thought no ill of them. Their vocation 

 would have been as honorable, for aught I 

 know, as that of any other butcher. But a 

 man of twenty, a man of seventy, shooting 

 sanderlings, ring plovers, golden plovers, 

 and whatever else comes in his way, not for 

 money, nor primarily for food, but because 

 he enjoys the work! "A little lower than 

 the angels!" What numbers of innocent 

 and beautiful creatures have I seen limping 

 painfully along the beach, after the gunners 

 had finished their day's amusement! Even 

 now I think with pity of one particular 

 turnstone. Some being made "a little 

 lower than the angels " had fired at him and 

 carried away one of his legs. I watched 

 him for an hour. Much of the time he stood 

 motionless. Then he hobbled from one 

 patch of eel-grass to another, in search of 

 something to eat. My heart ached for him, 

 and it burns now to think that good men 

 find it a pastime to break birds' legs and 

 wings and leave them to perish. I have 

 seen an old man, almost ready for the grave, 

 who could amuse his last days in this way 

 for weeks together. An exhilarating and 



