PREFACE xiii 



county of Dorset, that a gamekeeper finding, I 

 presume, that he could no longer, with impunity to 

 himself, put up pole-traps on his master's ground, 

 had induced the gardener of a large garden which 

 adjoined one of his owl-haunted covers, to plant the 

 forbidden instrument of torture there, and that, in 

 the few weeks it was allowed to remain, it had 

 caught and lacerated to death seven owls of various 

 kinds for every week, in fact, an owl ! 



Much has been done of late, by various public 

 bodies or private individuals, towards inculcating 

 greater kindness to animals, wild as well as domesti- 

 cated. The Society for " the Prevention of Cruelty 

 to Animals " and that for "the Protection of Birds," 

 have, each of them, done a noble, and, as it would 

 seem, an ever extending work. The horrors of 

 the slaughter-house have been, in some measure, 

 diminished by moral influences ; and it is to be 

 hoped, now that the Commission on the subject 

 have, at length, published their Report, that it will 

 not be long before the remaining abuses are, as 

 far as possible, swept away by law. Admirable 

 books like those by Richard Jeffries, Mr Ward 

 Fowler, Mr Cornish, Mr Dixon, Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell, Mr Hudson, and Mr Kearton, not to 

 mention half a dozen others of the same type, 



