CH. V.] A PLEA FOR RARE BIRDS. 207 
have, however, seen the Golden Plover on the 
higher ground in the island, and known of several 
instances where it has been shot. 
There appears to exist too often an insane 
desire to kill rare birds, for no other reason than 
because they are rare, not with a view to add to 
the stock of knowledge already possessed with 
regard to the birds, but from a morbid wish to 
gratify the vanity of the person who kills them. 
This surely cannot be too much deprecated, for, 
should the practice continue unchecked, in pro- 
portion as each species gives way before the in- 
crease of population, exactly in the same propor- 
tion will the gun be raised against it, and thus the 
present generation may live to lament the absence 
of many familiar winged friends by which their 
eyes and ears are now gladdened. 
A picture appeared in Punch, a year or two 
ago, representing two men of the “navvy” class, 
watching a traveller quietly passing along the road 
near them, one of whom says, “I say, Bill, yon’s 
a stranger.’ Upon which his friend answers, 
“Oh, is a? ’eave ’alf a brick at ’en then.’ Now 
this, which is intended as a hit at the brutality 
and inhospitality of some of our uneducated 
classes (scarcely merited, I hope and believe), may, 
