ON SHOOTING BIRDS FOR SPORT. 283 



The wounded flutter through brake or wood, 

 With anguish writhe as they seek their food ; — - 

 Or, lingering in pain from day to day. 

 At length they pine and die away ; — 

 Or fluttering , floating on ocean wave, 

 They find, in some hungry fish, a grave. 

 These, Man ! the trophies of thy sport!* 

 For these thou payest wanton court ! 



and Shooting, are encouraged as Sports, and followed ac- 

 cordingly by our Magnates, acts of parliament, and, I fear, 

 most other attempts to prevent cruelty to animals, will be 

 comparatively abortive. 



Relative to the destruction of animals injurious to man, Cowper 

 has stated the case with tolerable precision : 



" The sum is this : If man's convenience, health, 

 Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 

 Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs." 



When, however, noxious animals are to be destroyed, hu- 

 mauity will prompt us to do the revolting deed in the most ex- 

 peditious and least painful way. The wickedness and cruelty 

 of destroying any animal, how noxious soever it may be, merely 

 for our sport or diversion, require no comment. 



In Note (17), page 185, it is stated that one hundred and twenty- 

 nine birds were killed, or at least obtained, by one shot ; but 

 it should also be mentioned, as an appalling fact in the history, 

 that nearly forty birds more, either wing-broken or otherwise in. 

 jured, floated away on the surface of the water. What must 

 have been the mass of pain and suffering produced by this 

 outrage on the unoffending Pur; a bird which, after all, though 

 eatable, is by no means a delicacy. 



* These are not, however, the only trophies obtained by 

 Shooting. The accidents arising to man himself from the use 



