i 9 4 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



gardens for the sole purpose of attracting Goldfinches, and 

 of capturing one bird after another until the constancy of 

 the flock is rewarded by its total extinction. In 1860, the 

 annual average of Goldfinches caught in the neighbourhood 

 of Worthing is said to have been 1 1 54 dozen, but the supply 

 and how can one wonder has fallen off, and to replace 

 it Goldfinches have been imported in large numbers from 

 Germany. 



The pity of it all is that not only are the birds removed 

 from surroundings and localities they would adorn with their 

 wild grace and beauty, but that the cost of the process in 

 bird life is so appalling, for the female birds are in many 

 cases killed as they are netted, since they do not sing, and 

 of birds consigned to the market, fewer than half live even 

 to delight the ears and eyes of man, since it is said that 

 60 per cent, die miserably within a fortnight after they have 

 traversed the short distance between the bird-catcher and 

 the trader of the bird-shop. 



SCOTTISH PEARL FISHING 



As a last example of the influence of fashionable pleasure 

 upon Scottish animals, take the case of the insignificant 

 Freshwater Pearl Mussel {Margaritifera margaritifer). 

 Through many centuries the fame of British pearls has spread 

 beyond the limits of our islands, for Suetonius alleges that 

 the hope of enriching himself with them helped to induce 

 Julius Caesar to venture across the Channel; and in the 

 times of the Venerable Bede (673-735) tnev were a va lu- 

 able British commodity. In the twelfth century there was 

 a European market for Scottish pearls, and in the sixteenth 

 Bishop Leslie says of them : 



in Laudien Land [the Lothians] farther, and lykewyse in vthir prouinces 

 with ws ar funde Gemis,...to wit... the Margarite in gret number... the 

 Margarite is baith welthie {lit. abundant] and of a noble price. Thay in- 

 deid schawe a schyneng brichtnes, notwithstanding mair obscuir than thay 

 quhilkes ar brocht in frome the Eist. In freshe water buckies nocht 

 pleisand to the mouth, na lesse than in salt water buckies growis the 

 Margarite. 



In 1560 "large handsome pearls" were exported from Scot- 

 land to Antwerp, and in 1620 there was found in the Kelly 

 Burn, a tributary of the Ythan in Aberdeenshire, a fine pearl 



