THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 137 



called The Animal World made its appearance. 

 Among the contributors to the first number were 

 the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; William and 

 Mary Howitt, Frank Buckland, Frances Power 

 Cobbe, and Francis Orpen Morris. For many 

 years no signature was more frequently seen in the 

 columns of this periodical than that of F. O. Morris, 

 and his very first contribution to its pages was 

 headed " British Birds," in which a strong appeal 

 was made for their protection. He quoted the 

 words of a correspondent who stated that on one 

 Sunday morning in this same year he had counted 

 from a railway-carriage no less than thirteen shoot- 

 ing parties along one side of the railway between 

 Stratford and Tottenham stations alone, one shot 

 being fired from the railway at a robin perched on 

 the telegraph wire ! Another correspondent gave a 

 graphic account of the miserable shooting matches 

 in which linnets and sparrows were the unfortunate 

 victims. The principal actors in these tragic scenes 

 were would-be " sportsmen " of the Jones, Brown, 

 and Robinson type ; other interested parties being 

 innkeepers and betting men of the lowest type. A 

 third correspondent who had travelled in many parts 

 of the world no less graphically described various 

 other kinds of slaughter, especially the way in which 

 the trustful sea-birds which follow ships at sea are 

 shot and captured in the most heartless and barbar- 

 ous fashion. He related how that he once asked 

 one of these people what particular pleasure it gave 

 him to shoot a poor sea-bird thus, to which he made 



