8 
FOWLS OF THE AIR. 
spare. It aims at the diffusion of sound information on bird-life 
and habits, and at shaming people out of barbarous treatment of 
harmless, generally beautiful, and often useful species. Anyone 
may become a member for the trifling annual subscription of half 
a crown, or a life member by the single payment of a guinea. The 
pamphlets and leaflets already published by the Society exhibit, in 
addition to zeal, the indispensable quality of discretion. No attempt 
is made to discourage field sports, although some thoughtful 
persons conscientiously disapprove of these. Many of its members 
would have no part in it if the programme included putting an 
end to shooting birds for sport. This is no place to enter upon 
a discussion of the ethics of field sports; but no observer of 
human nature can have remained blind to this apparent paradox, 
that among no class of persons—no ! not even among the fair 
sex—are animals in general more sure of humane treatment than 
at the hands of sportsmen. 
Besides, this ought to be remembered—that but for the game 
laws, but for the preservation of wild birds for sport, there would 
not be in our land at this day one in ten thousand of the grouse, 
pheasants, and partridges which adorn it. The red grouse is the 
only exclusively British bird in the whole list. Collectors would 
have swarmed from all parts of the world, and long ere this grouse 
would have ceased to exist but for the protection of the game laws. 
Let us even descend so low as pigeon shooting from traps. It is 
not, indeed, a field sport—it is perhaps a stretch of courtesy to call 
it sport of any sort, and I cannot bear to witness it. Nevertheless, 
even pigeon shooting, properly conducted, may present certain 
advantages when regarded from the pigeon’s point of view. 
Hundreds of thousands of pigeons are bred annually for the sole 
purpose of supplying pigeon matches, which would never have exis¬ 
tence at all if these were prohibited. During their brief lives they 
are well tended and well fed ; they have no knowledge of the fate in 
store for them, and it may be left to subtler intellects than mine 
to decide whether “ ’Tis better to be hatched and shot than never 
to be hatched at all.” 
At all events, while the Society is very far from approving 
