126 THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 



and wrong by our purpose; and moral equity, that 

 we invade not the privileges of other men. Now in 

 any of these acts that we call cruelty to animals, we 

 are wrong when the purpose in view does not call 

 for the act, or when there are other means of accom- 

 plishing that purpose, — as when a brutal person 

 attempts to beat into action an animal that stands 

 more in need of food or rest. When we do the act 

 even with a purpose, there is apt to be a taint, a 

 lessening of the delicacy of feeling towards our 

 fellows, in proportion as the animal to which the act 

 is done approximates to man in structure or associa- 

 tion. That which shrinks and throbs with pain, 

 from which the blood flows warm, and the breath 

 escapes in sighs and convulsions, — the killing of a 

 hare or a rabbit, or even a pig, is much more likely 

 to contaminate, than the death of a trout, which has 

 little or nothing in common with us. A cat is a 

 predatory animal, and yet a man of any pretensions 

 to right feelings, would rather pull a few thousand 

 fishes from the stream, than kill the mouser which 

 sat basking in the lone old woman's cottage window, 

 and had for ten long years been the only associate 

 of its mistress. This maudlin-tenderness, which is 

 often the cloak of cruelty of a far worse description, 

 is another of the fruits of that bastard tree of 

 knowledge, which produces words, not things ; and 

 the very summit of which is so dwarfed and lowly, 

 that it can command but a little shred of the pros- 

 pect. Before we decide, we should see the whole ; 



