Ill



THE ETHICS OF EXHIBITING.


I.


By J. Cronkshaw.


I am happy to say that I can advance a few arguments in justification

of sending birds to shows, but from my experience in exhibiting I could

fill a page in The Times with arguments against it as it is generally carried

on. If pleasure is the motive for exhibiting our pets, and they are not sent

too far away, nor left to the mercy of railway servants and some show com¬

mittees, exhibiting is justifiable in my opinion ; especially if the exhibitor

goes with his birds, as I do when possible, even from the North of England

to the Crystal Palace show in the south. And why is it justifiable ? Mainly

because it gives others the same pleasure that the owner seeks for himself,

viz., the satisfaction of seeing the most beautiful of specimens and Rarce

aves in Foreign and British birds, which many persons would never see if

exhibitions were not patronised. Suffering by the birds is thus reduced to

a minimum, and I defy anyone to prove by argument that exhibiting under

these conditions is not every whit as justifiable as the keeping birds in

captivity. The purpose is the same in both cases, and the pleasure, and

the study of birds’ habits. . But exhibiting birds is very much abused by

many persons. We have only to look through the prize lists in show

reports, published week by week, to find the same men winning almost all

over the country with the same birds. I call those men “Professionals,”

most of whom seem to exhibit birds for what they can make out of them.

From a commercial point of view their action is justifiable ; from a humane

point of view it is often gross cruelty. I have seen a man poke up his bird

with a stick when the judge was going round, and exclaim—“Come, come ;

can you not stand the fatigue of two shows in one week ? ” Some of these

men exhibit all over the country, and then advertise their stock for sale at

very low prices, in addition to netting as much prize money as possible.

And when money-making is the object, some of these men are suspected of

selling not the bird that wins all round, but one out of a stock of inferior

birds, bought for the purpose of being “palmed ” upon confiding amateurs

in place of the one advertised. Exhibiting birds week in and week out for

such a purpose, would, perhaps, be thought clever by men on the Stock

Exchange, but from a humane point of view, it is not justifiable. I have

never lost a bird through exhibition, but the}'- have sometimes come home

completely exhausted; mainly, I presume, through neglect by railway

servants, ami thus missing the train connections. I have never exhibited

canaries. I don’t think that birds so well domesticated would suffer so

much as Foreign and British birds; but in sixty cases out of a hundred I

opine that canaries are exhibited from a commercial point of view—for sale,

or the sale of their prospective progeny. Commercially, such exhibition is

justifiable, if the committee at shows will only look after the stock. Many

committees, however, fail miserably in that respefit. I once went to a show

and found not only my own birds, but every large seed-eating foreign bird

without a grain in its cage. Moreover, there was not a grain of hemp-seed

on the premises. I repeat, exhibiting for profit is not justifiable from a

humane point of view ; but from the other point of view it is. Exhibiting by

amateurs under the conditions named at the outset, is as justifiable as the

very keeping of birds in captivity.



IL


By H. R. FiivLMER.


Is it permissible for the true bird-lover to send his pets to shows ?

There is much to be urged on both sides of the question.


There is, undoubtedly, a good deal of cruelty incidental to shows—

unintentional and generally unavoidable cruelty—it cannot be pleasant for

a bird to be compelled to leave his roomy comfortable quarters at home and

be confined within the narrow limits of a show cage. Even a short railway

journey must be a sore trial to a bird, and he often has to pass many hours



