* scaling' and tongue-slitting. 261 



certain birds, because it is thought that their atten- 

 tion, being shut off from distraction by external 

 objects, would be concentrated in their song. Some 

 birds escape total blindness by being ' scaled.' A 

 red-hot knitting needle is held so close to the eye, 

 without actually touching it, that a white ' scale ' is 

 formed on the cornea, and prevents light from having 

 access to the eye until the scale is thrown off, and 

 the cornea restored by the reparative operations of 

 Nature. Many, however, if not most, are totally 

 blinded, the red-hot needle being pushed into the 

 pupil of the eye. This is no modern practice, as 

 is shown by one of the photos in Hogarth's ' Pro- 

 gress of Cruelty.' 



The custom, which still lingers, of slitting the 

 tongue of a starling or magpie, in order to enable 

 it to speak, is scarcely less cruel. Oddly enough, 

 its gradual extinction has been owing, not to any 

 increase of humanity on the part of man, but to 

 the improvement of our coinage. 



To slit the tongue with steel was thought to be 

 useless, and the only instrument which possessed the 

 requisite virtue was a ' silver sixpence.' Some of 

 my readers may be old enough to recollect the six- 

 pences which were current in my childhood — mere 

 irregular discs of metal, with scarcely a vestige of 

 obverse and reverse, and worn at the edges until 



