CH. V.] PLEA FOR EAEE BIEDS. 209 



that these interesting visitors were in the act of 

 constructing a nest when they fell before Mr 

 Snooks's unerring tube." 



It was not very long ago that I saw in The 

 Times a letter from a "naturalist," relating how 

 a Harlequin-duck had visited his pond, and be- 

 come quite domesticated there, swimming about 

 with his other ducks, and coming tamely to be 

 fed with them day after day. Of course this could 

 not be permitted : the poor Harlequin-duck was 

 much too rare to be allowed the common rites of 

 hospitality, so he was " secured," and the perpe- 

 trator of the deed, apparently thinking he had 

 done a fine thing, actually wrote to The Times, 

 informing the civilised people of England of his 

 achievement, and evidently expecting to be be- 

 lauded on the strength of it. Another so-called 

 "naturalist" similarly boasted through the me- 

 dium of a newspaper, that he had been so fortu- 

 nate as to "secure" (that seems the correct term) 

 a Nightingale, in the West of Devonshire, having 

 shot it whilst in the act of singing on the topmost 

 branch of a thorn-bush. Another instance of the 

 same kind has come within my own knowledge, 

 where a person having been unsuccessful in his 

 attempts to approach a Stone Curlew, whose nest 



p 



