138 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



reply, " The instincts of a sportsman " ! " Bah ! " 

 replied the writer ; " I should like to know what the 

 brave fellow who, with nothing but a single rifle and 

 a stout heart, goes to seek the man-eating tiger in his 

 lair, or even the man who will walk twenty miles 

 through swamp and bog for snipe, or the chance of 

 some, thinks of such sportsmen !" 



For three years not a month passed without 

 his writing in the pages of The Animal World, 

 some of his communications extending to great 

 length. 



He was never at a loss for a text for a letter, but 

 would have doubled or trebled the amount he wrote 

 could he have found the time. The powers of the 

 poetic art were sometimes called in to aid him in his 

 appeals and give them greater eloquence. In the 

 number for March 1870, for instance, appeared the 

 touching and graceful lines entitled " The Small 

 Birds' Appeal," beginning with the words, "All day 

 we flit across your view." The sonnet was written 

 by his friend and neighbour of many years' standing, 

 the Rev. Richard Wilton (now Canon of York), the 

 rector of Londesborough. Besides communications 

 on British birds, other subjects of his letters were 

 " Inculcation of Humanity in Schools," " Dog Ken- 

 nels," " Transit of Cattle," " Petition to Parliament 

 in favour of a Land Birds' Protection Bill," " Asso- 

 ciation for the Protection of British Birds," " A Tax 

 on Guns," "The most Humane Mode of killing 

 Insects," "Horses and Grass," "Steel Traps," "Lec- 

 ture on Humanity," "The Last of the Swallows." 



