BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 49 
2. Taking the bird up, compress the throat between the thumb and 
finger for a minute. Retaining the grasp, swing the body round sey- 
eral times, and then remove the head as just described. Here insen- 
sibility is produced by suffocation and loss of motion by the twisting 
of the bones of the neck. 
3. A very sharp blow, with a small but heavy stick, behind the neck, 
at about the second joint from the head, will injure the spinal cord 
so as to destroy sensation and motion, if properly executed ; the 
head to be afterwards severed from the neck. 
4. Hang up the bird by the legs, and thrust a long, narrow, sharp- 
pointed knife, like a penknife, into the brain through the back part 
of the roof of the mouth. Death is instantaneous. To do this con- 
siderable dexterity is required. 
It has been observed that fish which are instantly killed on being 
taken from the water are vastly superior, in taste and solidity, to 
those which are allowed to die, as is the universal custom with us. 
And why should this not be the case? Why should we make a dis- 
tinction in this respect between animals that swim and those that fly or 
run? No one of us would think of eating beast or bird that had died a 
natural death. Various modes of killing fish are practised by different 
people. ‘The Dutch, for example, destroy life by making a slight lon- 
gitudinal incision under the tail by means of a very sharp instrument. 
On the Rhine they kill the salmon by thrusting a steel needle into 
their heads. 
Fish may be easily destroyed by striking them a quick, sharp blow 
with a small stick on the back of the head just behind the eyes, or by 
taking them by the tail and.striking the ‘head quickly against any 
hard substance. ) 
We have made no remarks upon the destruction of animal life by 
means of deadly poisons, as such agents cannot, with safety, be placed 
in the hands of the unskilled. Neither have we spoken of the use of 
various gases as a means of humane destruction, such means not being 
at the disposal of the people generally. 
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VOL, I. 7 
