A PLEA FOR THE SEA GULLS. 139 



which contains a Gull tells its own sad tale of suffering 

 and death, and the poor bird appeals mutely yet elo- 

 quently in the name of all that is noble and kind and 

 generous in the breast of its fair owner, that the Sea 

 Gull's yearly tribute to the Moloch of Fashion may 

 for ever cease. Would that Mrs. Grundy might become 

 an ornithologist, and learn to protect our feathered 

 friends and favourites instead of destroying them. A 

 dead Sea Gull on beauty's brow is a blemish. Let lady 

 readers bear in mind the cruelty which has been 

 practised to supply their requirements the helpless 

 starving young ones left upon the rocks waiting for food 

 that can never come, and for parents that will return no 

 more ; the mangled, blood-stained birds shot down 

 when life seemed fairest and brightest ; the sea bereft of 

 its greatest ornament ; the heralds of the fisherman 

 killed ; the guide of the storm-tossed mariner destroyed. 

 Let them but just remember this ere ordering the Sea 

 Gull with their millinery, and we are convinced that our 

 appeal on behalf of these graceful birds will not have 

 been made in vain. 



