HOW TO PKESERVE ALL BIRDS. 203 



nets and the pheasants all driven into them to 

 struggle screaming with terror until their turn 

 came to have their necks broken, would think 

 he had acted with great humanity, while we are 

 sure that our very tamest pheasants suffer more 

 when caught occasionally to have their wings 

 cut than if they were shot. The mere hand- 

 ling a wild bird causes terror, and we used 

 even to have our guinea-fowls shot in pre- 

 ference to hunting and catching them. 



Many ladies rear numbers of turkeys and 

 chickens, and tliough it is well known that their 

 superfluous stock are killed and some of them 

 sold, no one thinks of accusing these ladies of 

 cruelty. Yet it is a far more miserable thing to 

 watch a poor turkey tied up by the legs bleed- 

 ing to death than to see a hundred birds shot 

 flying. And the wounded even do not suffer 

 as some suppose. Let anyone observe the ex- 

 pression in a bird's eye as his retriever brings 

 him, carrying him ' tenderly as though he loved 

 him,' as Sir Isaac Walton advised his disciples 



