Cruelty to Birds 211 



4 



shows a really keen interest in the matter, it is a 

 different thing, and a taste to be encouraged ; otherwise 

 let them employ their leisure hours in stamp and other 

 collections, which will bring no harm to economy and 

 beauties of nature. In any case, to buy eggs at a shop 

 is uninteresting and unromantic. 



On looking at some boy's collection, you catch 

 sight of some rare eggs, and on asking how he came 

 by them, are told they were bought in London ! 



Owing to the local protection of birds, there seems 

 to be less taking of eggs by the village boys, for one 

 does not see the festoons of blue and white shells 

 depending on cottage walls, as one used to some thirty 

 years ago. There is much cruelty amongst professional 

 bird-catchers, who entrap hundreds of larks, goldfinches, 

 linnets, &c., and imprison them in miserable little cages 

 in which the poor birds can barely hop about. 



And nightingales, too ! which are caught in April 

 when they first arrive, just when their small bodies 

 and minds were beating high with the instinct of the 

 propagation of their species, with the return of spring- 

 time and song. 



In order to see the haunts of the London bird- 

 catchers, I penetrated one Sunday morning into the 

 streets of Whitechapel, where on that day the mart is 

 especially busy. One street was so crowded that it 

 was difficult to walk with any ease. 



Men in Sunday suits with red cloth ties round 

 their necks, unrelieved by collars, jostled each other, 

 holding one cage or more, usually tied up in coloured 

 handkerchiefs. 



