WINTER ASPECTS 217 



to put a stop to these disgusting barbarities " ; and 

 again they have said to me, " We can do nothing 

 they abuse us because we forbid them putting their 

 traps and hooks on our ground but you can perhaps 

 do something." 



Of these compassionate persons, of different social 

 ranks, I will speak particularly of only one, a very ten- 

 der-hearted woman, the wife of a working man, a huge 

 fellow with the strength of an ox ; and whenever the 

 winter-driven birds arrived and were slaughtered in 

 great numbers with circumstance of shocking cruelty, 

 it was a consolation to her in her distress to think 

 that he, her life-mate, although a native of the town, 

 had never killed a bird in his life. There was doubt- 

 less a strain of mercy in both of them. She told me 

 of an uncle who had inherited a house and garden 

 in the town, where he had spent his life, whose habit 

 it was to take out a basket of food every day for the 

 birds. For some two or three years before his death 

 one of his little pensioners was a robin with a crushed 

 or broken leg that lived in his garden, and the woman 

 assured me that when he was taken to be buried this 

 bird followed the funeral, and was seen by many of 

 those present flitting about close to the grave. On 

 inquiry I found that this story was believed by many 

 persons in St. Ives. 



I have spoken in this chapter of the little crippled 

 birds so often seen in this town and in some of the 

 villages, and my belief was that these had all been 

 caught in gins and had got away, leaving a foot or leg 

 behind. But I occasionally saw a bird with a dang- 



