BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 129 



made the sight so fascinating, since it was found 

 that others — all others, it might almost be said, 

 — experienced the same kind of delight. Crowds 

 of people came down to the river to watch the 

 birds; workmen when released from their work 

 at mid-day hurried down to the embankment so 

 as to enjoy seeing the gulls while eating their 

 dinners, and, strangest thing of all, to feed them 

 with the fragments ! 



And yet these very men who found so great a 

 pleasure in observing and feeding their white 

 visitors from the sea, and were exhilarated with 

 the novel experiences of seeing wild nature face 

 to face at their own doors — these thousands 

 would have stood by silent and consenting if the 

 half-a-dozen scoundrels with guns and fish-hooks 

 on lines had been allowed to have their will and 

 had slaughtered and driven the birds from the 

 river! And this, in fact, is precisely what hap- 

 pened at a distance from London, where guns 

 could be discharged without danger to the public, 

 in numberless bays and rivers in which the birds 

 sought refuge. They were simply slaughtered 

 wholesale in the most wanton manner; in More- 

 cambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls were killed 



