1 SS 5 .] Correspondence. 369 
in London, temp. Henry VIII., and perhaps the balance of 
Nature was not greatly affedted by firearms till more than two 
centuries later, when Fielding said Tom Jones had “ actually 
been known to hit a bird on the wing ” ; but a change was made 
in the latter part of last century, for my grandmother had diffi- 
culty in guarding my great-grandfather’s chickens from kites 
about 1 10 years ago, but my father (who was born in 1800) never 
saw a kite in Yorkshire except once. He tells me an instance 
of the way in which numbers invite enemies : he has a cat 
which is a great bird-catcher, and, though you would not expedt 
her to catch swallows, their numbers hovering over the little 
River Leen tempted her to try. She noticed that they turned 
from the river over the bank at one spot near a willow : there 
she lay in the grass, and sprang at them as they passed. One 
afternoon she brought five (martins) to my father’s house. 
Hugh Browne. 
VEGETARIANISM. 
Your occasional contributor, Mr. Mattieu Williams, has, in a 
contemporary of yours, advanced a novel and powerful argument 
in favour of Vegetarianism, i.e., that the disuse of animal food 
would do away with what you well call the “ barbarism ” of per- 
manent pasture, and would consequently arrest the depopulation 
of the open country and the deplorable crowding of the poorer 
classes into the great cities. But I fear he forgets the moor- 
lands, marsh-lands, &c., which as grazing ground contribute 
their quota to the national larder, but, being quite unfit for 
plough or spade, would under a vegetarian regime have to be 
disused. 
R. T. 
[The moors and mountains might possibly be restored to 
their pristine condition, that of forests, and the marsh-lands 
could undoubtedly be utilised as osier-beds. — E d. J. S.] 
