7 20 Physiology and its Opponents. [December , 
after admitting that field sports do not ‘ seem to harmonize 
with the highest type of cultivated and human feeling,’ 
goes on to say that the men who follow them may at 
least plead the excuses of custom and partial ignorance. 
This when the very contention in dispute is that the rea- 
soned and deliberate scientific adtion is right, while the 
following of custom and primitive instindt is barbarous.” 
With all this we can agree. But in the sentence quoted 
from Miss Cobbe falsehoods and fallacies lie strewn so 
thickly that Mr. Robertson does not note them all. The 
dog, when such happens to be the subjedt, is not necessarily 
“ affedtionate and trustful.” He is not subjedt to “ slow, 
long-drawn agonies,” because he is, unlike the fox, under 
the influence of anaesthetics. Further, in a large number 
of cases the operations are instantaneous, and occasion 
about as much pain as does vaccination. 
But Miss Cobbe, besides her exaggerations and distortions 
of fadts, shows, in selecting “ for example, a fox hunt,” no 
small degree of petty cunning. Let us, on the contrary, 
take for example a tame deer which has no more “chased 
and been chased all its days ” than has a calf, but which is, 
some fine day, brought in a cart to be hunted by the royal 
buckhounds. What of its terror ? Or take the case of a 
salmon hooked, and “ played,” as we have read, for three 
hours. This play consists in compelling the fish to swim 
with open mouth against the stream, unable to breathe 
freely, until it is, in fadt, killed by exhaustion and slow 
suffocation. 
Does not such a salmon sustain — if sensitive, and the 
Anti-Vivisedtion Adt recognises its sensitiveness — more 
“ slow, long-drawn agonies ” than Miss Cobbe’s “ affec- 
tionate, trustful dog ? ” Or, take the case of a frog, impaled 
alive on a. hook and left all night struggling in the water as 
a bait for jack ? Yet these anglers are absolved both by the 
Adt and by the sentimentalists, whose shrieks have been the 
main argument in its favour. Or, again, let us consider 
pigeons or sparrows shot down at meetings of gun-clubs, 
but not necessarily killed; left to lie in pain until discovered 
by some prowling weasel, cat, or “ affedtionate trustful dog.” 
Surely in these instances, and in many more which might 
be adduced, there is “ torture ” not instantaneous, but pro- 
longed, not assuaged by anaesthetics, certainly equalling, 
or rather exceeding in amount, the average of the sufferin'’ 
inflidted in physiological experiments. What right, then^ 
have those who pradtise such things themselves as a 
mere pastime, or who defend them when practised by others 
