THE REDSHANK. 161 



only people of the party who exhibit any real "sportsmanship" (as distinguished 

 from skilled gunnery), and the bigger the butcher's bill, the greater, apparently, 

 the supposed success. The essence of true sport is, I have always been taught, 

 to pit your own wits against those of a creature whose death, if you compass it, 

 will be of some practical benefit to you, either as a means to a food, a clothing, 

 the removal of a pest or danger, or as a means of increasing your knowledge. 

 We have no right to take the life of a harmless creature, except on one of these 

 grounds, not eveu on the ground of personal adornment. But the tender 

 mercies of the thoughtless are cruel. I once watched a brute (a well dressed 

 brute, too), in a boat off Spurn Point, shooting Terns in September. Now 

 Terns are entirely harmless, any boy of 15, without the least skill, can shoot 

 them, and this creature was at them the whole afternoon. He did not trouble 

 to pick one of them up, nor even to see that the mangled ones were put out 

 of their misery. They dropped ; each one counted for one more ; suffering was 

 nothing to him. The next day the shore was covered with dozens of the poor birds, 

 some, even then, only half dead. One's blood simply boils at this savage, callous 

 brutality. I know even of a worse case. A Magistrate, who has plenty of 

 game shooting of his own a good shot, and in no need of practice therefore 

 confessed, without any apparent shame, that he had recently had "grand sport" 

 amongst the Gulls on the coast, and had on one occasion used two hundred 

 cartridges ; he had picked none up, nor, apparently, troubled to see whether they 

 were actually killed or not. And there are those who maintain that this is a 

 civilized country ! The ferret, and others of the weasel tribe, will kill till they 

 are exhausted, for the mere lust of blood, but one does not expect to find civilized 

 human beings, or those who claim to be such, on no higher plane. 



In writing the above, I have no intention of decrying real sport, but of 

 protesting against some of the tendencies which appear to be corrupting the 

 modern ideas of what is sport. I have been associated with sportsmen and sport 

 all my life, and some of the noblest specimens of humanity whom I have been 

 privileged to know, have been keen sportsmen or ardent naturalists and collectors. 

 But it was a bad day for sport when the idle, self-indulgent, and vulgar, invaded 

 what used to be the recreation of the manly and energetic. 



The Redshank swims well and voluntarily, and feeds upon marine insects, 

 Crustacea, annelids, and small mollusca, living on the shore for three parts of the 

 year or all of it, as only a portion go inland with us to breed. To this diet 

 may be partly attributed its coarse flavour. But even j T oung birds, shot where 

 Redshanks do not breed, and therefore, presumably, fresh from inland breeding 

 grounds, I have found almost uneatable. 



VOL. V. 



