142 
NATURE NOTES 
“ We take this opportunity of saying how very grateful we shall be if any 
lady or gentleman will volunteer to help us in this way by joining us on pur 
Saturday rambles once a fortnight and showing us the wonderful secrets of 
Nature, and helping us to appreciate the artistic beauty of creation which we 
can only dimly comprehend, because of the lack of an interpreter.” 
The secretary is Mr. J. Gordon Collins, 121, St. John’s Road, 
Hoxton, N. 
Pigeon Shooting. — We have frequently had occasion to 
remark on the gratifying fact that almost the entire London 
press is cordially with us in the advocacy of Selbornian 
principles. This happily is a matter wholly independent of any 
questions of party politics. We rejoice, therefore, to see a new 
candidate for popular favour, the Daily Express, joining the 
chorus on the side of humanity in the following, headed “ Brutal 
‘ Sport : ’ ” — 
Some remarkable statements have been made to the Express 
as to the hideous cruelties and barefaced frauds said to be carried 
on in connection with the “ sport ” of pigeon shooting. We 
believe in hearing all sides, and hope that these charges may be 
utterly disproved. Perhaps the quickest way of getting this 
done is to print them, leaving the followers of the sport to 
deny or — sit down under them. Among the allegations are the 
following : — 
(1) That wild pigeons — the common blue rock — are shot at 
(contrary, perhaps, to the Wild Birds Protection Act). 
(2) That special birds are cooped up for days in shallow 
baskets without water and food, this inhuman treatment making 
the pigeons too weak to rise quickly from the trap and escape the 
gun. 
(3) That betting men bribe the trapper to put weak and 
starved birds in the traps when the man they want to win is 
shooting, and to put strong and healthy birds in the traps for 
the other competitors. 
(4) That, in addition to this fraudulent practice, the trapper 
twists the “ bob ” tail feathers of the healthy birds, and pushes 
them back through the socket into the flesh, causing excru- 
ciating pain, which makes the bird — to use the language of our 
informant — “ get up sharp.” 
(5) That occasionally the trapper resorts to the cruel practice 
of breaking the bird’s legs between his finger and thumb when 
his gang of sharpers are backing the gun, thus causing it to 
flutter slowly from the trap. 
These are a series of most grave statements, and do not rest 
on the unsupported allegations of one man. 
In regard to the breaking of the bird’s legs, one man who 
makes his living by catching birds which escape from the Gun 
Club, Netting Hill, said to an Express representative: “Am I 
sure, guv’nor ! — am I sure that I’ve caught hundreds of birds in 
my time with both legs broken, and not a shot in the body 
or a feather touched ? Of course, they break them when it 
