BY WAY OF APPENDIX. 
205 
And 3^et 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 experience 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 had been allowed to 
have their will and had slaughtered and driven 
the birds from the river ! And this, in fact, is 
precisely what happened 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 Morecambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls 
were killed at one discharge, and no hand and no 
voice was raised to interfere with the hideous 
sport. 
Doubtless it will be said that this wholesale 
wanton destruction of bird life, however painful it 
may be to lovers of nature to witness, however 
reprehensible from a moral point of view, is 
sanctioned by law, and cannot therefore be pre- 
vented. This is not quite so. We see that the 
Wild Birds' Protection Act is continually being 
broken with impunity, and where public opinion 
is unfavourable to it the guardians of the law 
themselves are found encouraging the people to 
