X 
INTRODUCTION. 
are inadmissible, and that they have no moral right to such a course of procedure, compared with which the 
conduct of the old Whitecha])cl bird-catcher is an honest calling. 
The following extract from ‘Land and Water’ of August 29, 1868, embodying a letter to ‘The Times,’ 
aptly bears out my previous remarks on the wholesale destruction recently dealt out to certain species. 
“ No words can convey any adequate idea of the wanton, wicked cruelty perpetrated by these ruthless 
slayers of unoffending' birds. Broken-winged birds are abandoned, and drift away to jierish by slow 
degrees ; badly wounded birds are allowed to flutter and struggle in the bottom of the boat, their sufferings 
unheeded and uncared for ; while many fearfully hurt manage to reach the shore to die in lingering agony : 
and, lamentable to say, all this butchery is committed for no good purpose. We find a letter in ‘The 
Times’ headed ‘A Plea for the Kittlwake,’ in which it is remarked that ‘some months ago a contributor to 
a po])ular journal of natural history, writing from Lincolnshire, disclosed the fact that London and provincial 
dealers now give one shilling per head for every “ White Gull ” forwarded — that one man (a stranger drawn 
thither for profitable occupation) boasted of having last year killed with his own gun at Flamborough Head 
4000 of these gulls — and that another seafowl-shooter had an order from a London house for 10,000, all for 
the “plume trade.” During the present summer,’ it is added, ‘one of phmassiers has visited various 
breeding-stations of the Kittlwake in Scotland, and laid his plans for having supplies of birds sent to him. 
At Alisa Craig alone, he gave an order for 1000 Gulls per week, and stated that he was prepared to 
take any quantity. To meet this demand the tacksman of the rock spread his nets while the birds were 
sitting on their newly hatched young, which were left in hundreds to perish on the ledges.’ By reference to 
the letter from which the above is extracted, and which appeared in ‘The Times’ for August 21st, it will 
be seen that an Act has this year received the Royal Assent for the j)reservatlon of sea-fowl in the 
Isle of Man, and that its preamble states that ‘ the said birds are considered of great importance to tbe 
fishermen in guiding them to shoals of fish, and also for sanitary purposes by removing offal of fisb from the 
harbours and shores.’ ” 
Again, in a communication addressed to the ‘Zoologist’ for January 1869, Mr. John Cordeaux says: — 
“ The following paragraph is copied from the ‘ Guardian ’ of November 18, 1868. Comment is unnecessary. 
‘ On a strip of coast 18 miles long, near Flamborough Head, 107,250 sea-birds were destroyed hy pleasure 
parties in four months, 12,000 by men who shoot them for their feathers to adorn women’s hats, and 79,500 
young birds died of starvation in emptied nests. Commander Knocker, there stationed, who reports these 
facts, saw two boats loaded above the gunwales with dead birds; and one party of eight guns killed 1100 
in a week.’ ” 
Nature on the other hand herself at times effects similar wholesale destruction. Thus a severe winter may 
