Help us to Save Our Birds

Abstract

ALL praise be given to those who have made a stand for the preservation of British birds. With a spirit of patience they have had to encounter the crass prejudice that sometimes saturates even the rural mind, and to prove that if the small bird takes its toll from, it also greatly assists in preserving the store of, the farmer. They have had to combat the sporting instincts of the excited townsman, so joyous with his escape from the smoky labyrinths of his brick-built prison that even a feathered shuttle-cock would almost seem like game. Last and greatest feat, they have had to question the right to worship the national idol—gain, and to teach people, that even if, by the wholesale slaughter of feathered tribes, some persons scraped up gold, still that occupation, however praiseworthy, was against the general good. Truth at last dawned on the mind of the people, and so Parliament shielded, amongst other fowl, the pretty kittiwake from destruction, and preserved fashionable women from one more barbarism.