250 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



Sights such as this, heart-rending as they were to 

 him, gave him the text for many a letter and eloquent 

 appeal to the better feelings of our landed pro- 

 prietors who allow such cruelties to take place upon 

 their estates. This very case of the bonny but 

 hapless owl gave rise to a plea for this bird in the 

 Times, in which the sad story was graphically told, 

 and not without a suggested remedy. " Had the 

 capture," he wrote, " of any and all of our British 

 birds been forbidden by the recent Act during the 

 breeding season, such cruelties would be prevented 

 for a part of the year at all events. I can say for 

 myself that the eyes of this poor bird haunted me 

 at night so that I could not sleep, and I endeavoured 

 to divert my thoughts by writing this letter to the 

 Times in my head as I lay awake." It was in this 

 same letter that he combated the commonly re- 

 ceived idea that if you allow birds to increase with- 

 out check we should soon be eaten up by them. 

 What he said to those holding this mistaken notion 

 was this : "There are many kinds of our best- 

 known birds against which war has never been 

 especially waged. But has any one of these birds 

 unduly increased in the way suggested such, for 

 instance, as the wren, the dunnock or hedge-spar- 

 row, the marsh tit-mouse, cole tit-mouse, the robin 

 too, and scores of others ? Will any one pretend 

 that either of these has increased to any appreciable, 

 or still less to any injurious, extent ? Nay, it would 

 rather seem as if they were gradually becoming 

 fewer in number, though I would fain hope not. If 



