THE FLATS 41 



and that aesthetic pleasure, whether unconscious or (in 

 the higher animals) dimly conscious, exists throughout 

 the whole of the animate universe, from the Foraminifera's 

 instinctive choice of the right materials for building 

 their shells to the nuptial display of the Argus pheasant. 

 It is possible to believe that an artistic awareness does 

 exist in these wading birds, if unformulated and expressed 

 in their actions, rather than in the conception of an 

 imaginative kingdom outside their own, which is the 

 prerogative of man. 



II 



I am tempted to make a digression here. The flats 

 round Blakeney are the property or rental of the " National 

 Trust," but shooting " for food " is permitted, and this, 

 of course, drives a coach and four through the law, with 

 the collector of rare birds driving it. 



But, it may be argued, would you interfere with killing 

 these birds for food altogether ? Certainly not, if they 

 were needed for human food. There is no such necessity 

 at Blakeney, and, as Mr. Edmund Selous wisely says, 

 " The killing of any being, not merely of any human being, 

 can only really be justified by the strength of the reason for 

 doing so, i.e. through necessity." He adds further on : — 



" When we think of the pain which is often inseparable from the 

 act, of the well-being and happiness, the affection, the tender- 

 ness even — eocperto crede — ^which, by it, we destroy, and of the 

 absence of all crime and wickedness in those non-human lives 

 thus made to cease, reason, no less than morality, must tell ua 

 that such necessity ought by no means to be lightly admitted." 



The gunning tradition, in fact, has outlasted its usefulness, 

 with the consequence that what was once justified as 

 a need cannot, when it involves the slaughter of harmless 

 and richly endowed relatives of our own (many of them 

 no bigger than thrushes and sparrows), be justified as an 

 amusement. A use has degenerated into an abuse of 

 our power over creatures endowed with our own warm 

 blood, but not with our developed understanding and 

 capacity to take care of ourselves. " They that have 

 power to hurt and will do none " — ^how little is realized 



