28^ BRITISH AND EVROPJEAN BIRCS. 



Why sleeps Remonstrance when to Sport 

 He pays a heedless wanton court; — 

 Wounds many — kills, perchance, a few — 

 Then calls his dogs with loud halloo ? 



barbarity, for barbarity it assuredly is, to suit one's expressions 

 to the occasion. There can be, however, I presume, but one 

 opinion as to firing amidst a flock of birds, where the chances 

 are that as many or more may be wounded than killed by the 

 unfeeling process. The thought, too, which must naturally arise 

 in the breast of every humane person, that the wounded birds 

 may, and very often do, retire in agony and die a lingering 

 death, or drag on a miserable life, is calculated still more to 

 heighten our disgust and disapprobation. Such reflections as 

 these ought to deter Man from so wanton an aggression on the 

 happiness and well being of birds: but, alas! his Pleasure 

 and his Sport weigh down the beam in opposition to humanity 

 and feeling. 



Although I should not desire to see the late Act of Parliament 

 for preveniing Cruelty to Animals extended so as to include birds, 

 it being a subject on which it is difiicult, if not impossible, to 

 legislate, yet I should be very glad to find that, in every Seminary 

 ofEducation^ the necessity and duty of treating with kindness and 

 benevolence all animated nature were strongly inculcated 

 and enforced. Such kindly feeling exercised towards brutes 

 would inevitably lead to more kindly feelings towards our own 

 species — feelings which cannot be too much encouraged and 

 nurtured ; feelings which tend not only to promote the happi- 

 ness of others, but most essentially our own. 



It appears to me that it is chiefly by such means as these, 

 not by penal enactments, that Cruelty to Animals, generally, 

 will be most effectually prevented ; more especially if those, who 

 are influential in the affairs of mankind, take care to evince 

 those dispositions which it ought to be the aim of our seminaries 

 to implant. But, while the pursuits of Hunting, Fishing, 



