260 THE LAND'S END 



the shattered little bird from the water and in playing 

 with and carrying it. But if I had gone to him and 

 demanded to know why he had taken that happy little 

 life, which was sacred to me, I think his answer, if he 

 had condescended to make one, would have been very 

 contemptuous I think he would have said that he 

 perceived me to be a sentimentalist and that he 

 declined to say anything to a person of that sort. 



There are not, I imagine, many men of so fine a 

 temper of mind as to escape this hardening effect of 

 the gun in the hand. 



In conclusion of this chapter I will go back to the 

 subject of the Cornish seals of that small surviving 

 colony which has its ancestral home in the caves out- 

 side the Bay of St. Ives. Sportsmen occasionally 

 shoot them just for the pleasure of the thing, but the 

 fishermen of St. Ives do not consider that they suffer 

 any injury from the animals and have consequently 

 refrained from persecuting them. Unhappily they 

 are now threatened with extermination from a new 

 quarter: the students at the Camborne Mining School 

 have recently found out a new and pleasant pastime, 

 which is to seat themselves with rifle or fowling-piece 

 on the cliff and watch for the appearance of a brown 

 head above the water below of a seal going out of or 

 coming in to the caves and letting fly at it. When 

 they hit the seal it sinks and is seen no more, but the 

 animal is not wanted, the object is to shoot it, and 

 this accomplished the sportsman goes back happy and 

 proud at his success in having murdered so large and 

 human-like a creature. 



