SPORT AND SLAUGHTER 249 



strain, all telling the same tale of bird murder and 

 cruelty. " What/' he said, " makes me write is the 

 very strong feeling which I cannot help having on 

 the score of the inconceivable amount of cruelty 

 which it involves, through the countless thousands 

 of iron traps set all over the country every night of 

 the year for the mere preservation of the pheasants 

 for the slaughter. No words can describe what I 

 have myself seen." He had, in fact, seen a great 

 deal much more than he liked to see of the 

 ways of gamekeepers ; but having seen and heard 

 so much, he could not keep silence. 



It was in the spring of 1873 that he was one day 

 walking in a wood not far from Nunburnholme, 

 when his enjoyment of the scene that lay before 

 him and around him was suddenly brought to an 

 end. There, a few yards in front of him, he came 

 to a pole fixed in the ground, on the top of which 

 was an iron trap ; from this hung, head downwards, 

 a luckless white owl, with both its legs broken by the 

 cruel spring. As he came near to it, its splendid 

 bright eyes looked piteously at him ; it would have 

 taken a hard heart indeed not to have been moved 

 by such a sight. For many a long hour the poor 

 bird must there have hung, helpless and in pain. 

 There was nothing left but to put it out of its hope- 

 less torture as quickly as possible. Its beautiful 

 wings were stretched out to the full, giving it the 

 appearance, as its would-be deliverer expressed it in 

 a letter written shortly afterwards, " of being cruci- 

 fied with its head downwards, as in fact it was." 



