WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS 
129 
birds in order to release them, or to cherish them in larger and 
more comfortable quarters at home, forgetting meanwhile that 
by such acts the trade is getting a profit and that one is 
innocently the cause of the capture of several more birds. 
The decrease of many of our rarer birds is, I think, greatly 
owing to the ever-increasing bird trapper. I can speak from 
experience of a spot in England where it was a common sight, 
eight or nine years ago, to see large flocks of goldfinches, where 
now it is the rarest occurrence to see one. The same thing may 
be said of several other species. The constant snaring that is 
carried on must in a great measure account for this. I have 
been told that the number of birds which die before they can be 
sold necessitates the capture of a great surplus. When we re- 
flect on the vast amount of caged birds seen everywhere we 
find the trade must be enormous. 
This reflection compels us to look at the subject also from 
the trader’s point of view, and it is in this that the before-men- 
tioned proposition meets with a difficulty. Whether or not it is 
one that could be overcome, I now leave to be answered by any 
Selbornians who may like to give an opinion or welcome advice 
to one who has the subject greatly at heart, and who is a 
Lover of Liberty. 
WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN 
CUMBERLAND. 
HERE is no part of the Cumberland coast so full of 
witchery and fable as the point where M uncaster Fell 
comes down to the sea. The rivers of Irt, Mite and 
Esk, with their memories of the pearl-fisheries of 
olden time, swirl down toward the ancient harbour of the 
mythic “ King Aveling’s Town.” One cannot look across the 
pool at full tide without thought of how the Vikings pushed 
their ships ashore here, when they came from Mona’s Isle to 
harry Cumberland. 
But the sound of earlier civilisations is in our ears as one 
gazes across the Ravenglass sand-dunes ; for here beside us is 
the great cavern of ancient oaken-bogs and earth, wherein the 
Cymri buried their dead in prehistoric time, and there within a 
stone’s throw still upstands the seaside residence of some great 
Roman general, who was determined apparently to enjoy a 
well-heated house, and to do honour to the genius loci. No one 
who visits “ Walls ” Castle, as it is called, but must be struck 
with the remains of the “ tepidarium,” and the little niche that 
held the statue of the tutelary god or bust of the presiding 
Caesar within the ample hall. 
