218 THE LAND'S END 



ling leg, and could only account for it by supposing 

 that in such cases the leg had been broken by a stone, 

 the boys of the place all being greatly addicted to 

 stone-throwing at the birds. Later I discovered that 

 they were birds which had been caught in gins and 

 liberated by their captors. At least a dozen of the 

 big boys who spend all their leisure time in taking 

 birds with gins on the sands at St. Ives assured me 

 that they did not kill the small birds they caught, 

 which were not wanted to eat. They killed starlings, 

 blackbirds, thrushes and some other kinds, but 

 liberated the wagtails, titlarks, robins and a few other 

 small species. I also found out that when birds 

 arrive in vast numbers in a severe frost or snowstorm 

 and are caught with small baited hooks many of the 

 smaller birds after the hook has been taken from the 

 mouth or gullet are allowed to fly away. One man, 

 the most enthusiastic bird-catcher with the teagle in 

 the place, after removing the hook from the mouth 

 or gullet of the bird he does not want, takes the two 

 little mandibles between his thumbs and forefingers 

 and wrenches the face open, then tosses the bird up 

 to fly away to a little distance, soon to drop down and 

 perish in agony. Small birds that are not wanted, he 

 says, will sometimes return after being liberated and 

 get caught again ; those he liberates will trouble him 

 no more. 



These things are perfectly well known to every one 

 in the place, and as this man has not been taken 

 by his fellow-townsmen to the cliff and stoned and 

 his carcass thrown into the sea as food for dogfishes, 



