6 
*"r 
H cleared them all off.” His answer was :—“ If I don’t do it, some- 
u body else will,” and probably there was a good deal of truth in 
that. I am afraid also that our wild birds in the country suffer very 
much from the hands of cruel boys. Unfortunately the young 
urchins do not confine themselves to merely killing the victims, but 
they often delight in submitting them to other tortures. I had it 
from a lad to whom I had spoken by way of rebuke on this subject 
that he did not see why he should not get them, while everyone else 
shot all they could. I do not say that it is the better class of boys 
who are guiltv of these terrible things. Perhaps it is that we ask 
too much of the poorer classes, by expecting them to show tenderness 
and feeling when they do not see that same tenderness exhibited by 
those in a higher position of life. I can hardly blame the boys much, 
but 1 do blame those who, occupying positions in life which give 
them power and influence, fail to set a better example. (Cheers). 
There is at the present time a craze for killing, “ kill something,” is 
the cry. If the creature only moves and is free it must become 
a target. It seems to me to be one of the traits of this Nine¬ 
teenth Century civilisation, that no matter what the walk in 
life of a man may be, he thinks the finest and most manly 
thing he can do is to deprive some creature of its life. I 
dissent altogether from such a doctrine. (Applause), This 
useless destruction is often accompanied as I have said, by the 
most inhuman and fiendish acts. Last spring I spoke to some boys 
about the bird nesting, prevalent in the neighbourhood where I was 
staying. I asked them what they did with the young birds after 
they had taken the nest. “ O,” said one of the boys, “ we slits ’em,’* 
I said :—“ What do you mean by slitting them ? ” He replied 
u We pulls off their legs and wings and then chucks them into the 
water.” A few days afterwards I met some more boys apparently 
engaged in a similar amusement, when I put the same question to 
them, and received a like answer. And I fear the statement was 
only too true. Before I sit down let me say that what I think we 
are most wanting in is the education of the heart, much more than 
the education of the brain. (Cheers). We may make clever men 
and clever women, but it does not follow that because we are clever 
we are good ; and I think that when people go about the world, and 
show no pity for those creatures that cannot plead for themselves, it 
is a sign that there is something wrong with the civilisation that we 
are following out in these latter days. (Loud applause). 
Professor Newton :—I have first to express my thanks to the 
Society, which has been kind enough to ask me, as one of the 
ornithologists to whom Mrs. Phillips so kindly alluded, to be 
present on this occasion ; and now I should like to say a few words 
as regards the Report, from which extracts have been read by your 
acting secretary. I am extremely flattered by most of the contents 
of that Report, in which you have been good enough to refer to 
some exertions I was enabled to make so many years ago, that there 
must be several of you present here to-day who were not then born ; 
and as an old member of the Zoological Society it is also necessary 
