THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS' 1 ' ""147 



a very interesting discussion on the connection 

 between the Game Laws and the destruction of 

 British birds of the Hawk kind, when the destruc- 

 tion of the Gulls at Flamborough Head by cockney 

 shooters (sportsmen of course they are not) was 

 warmly commented on, I have just read in the 

 Times of this morning the letter of your corre- 

 spondent, ' A,' of Glasgow, on the destruction of the 

 Kittiwake. The facts he states were fully corro- 

 borated coincidently by the speakers to-day, and 

 will, I trust, be thought sufficiently bad ; but I am 

 sorry to say there is worse in the background. I 

 can assure you that it is the truth that one of 

 these unfortunate birds was picked up alive on 

 the beach near Bridlington, some half-a-dozen 

 miles from Flamborough Head, with both its 

 wings the ' plumes' of which your correspondent 

 speaks torn off, and another was picked up in 

 a field alive, with its bill tied so that it could not 

 feed." 



And again, on October 13 of the same year, he 

 wrote once more to the leading journal with an 

 urgent plea for the protection of the Sea-Gulls, 

 stating that a movement had been set on foot in 

 the East Riding for their preservation during the 

 breeding season ; also that a petition would be sent 

 round to ask the members to support the Bill when 

 before the House. He further asked the favour of 

 the insertion of some graceful and touching lines 

 on the birds' behalf "from the pen of a gifted 

 friend," though, as he put it, " plain prose is 



