154 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



in defence of the Sparrow that he and others gave 

 evidence before a Committee of the House of 

 Commons on Bird Protection in 1873, presided 

 over by the Hon. Auberon Herbert. In a state- 

 ment that he subsequently handed in he gave a 

 mass of evidence in favour of this bird, and among 

 other facts he observed : " This is the twentieth 

 year I have been rector of Nunburnholme, and in 

 the whole of that time I have never but twice, at 

 intervals, known the Sparrows do me any harm 

 that I should not feel ashamed to complain of." 



To many it appeared a small matter to agitate 

 and legislate for the protection of our native birds ; 

 to him, who knew what a vast amount of cruelty 

 was perpetrated every year upon these beautiful 

 creatures of God's world, it seemed anything but 

 small; nay, it would have appeared to him abso- 

 lutely wrong not to have espoused a cause which 

 cried so loudly for help. It was not in him to pass 

 in silence such accounts as a short one that I will 

 quote which was sent to him from Suffolk in 1885. 

 A gentleman and his sister were standing on a lonely 

 beach one day, when the only human being in sight 

 was a man who approached them from a distance 

 with a dog and gun, dealing destruction as he came 

 along. As they approached him a pair of small 

 Gulls flew past over the sea. He shot one, and it fell 

 into the water out of reach. Its mate hovered piti- 

 fully over it, and soon shared the same fate. The 

 man laughed and looked at the dead birds. The 

 two then went up to him, and asked, " What use 



