Punch: Punch (57.1869)

138 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 9, 1869.

A WET AFTERNOON AT THE SEA-SIDE.

Edwin. " No going Out for a "Walk to-day, Ducky ! Hooray ! What a Relief ! ! "
Angelina, " The very Observation I was about to make to you, Ducky !"

What says he who insists that it is pleasant, enlivening, inspiriting,
to see hawks, and kites, and buzzards, and other birds of prey, above j
all, eagles, hovering, skimming, pouncing, swooping, soaring about r1
The thing which is not? Then the British Legislature is another.
Has it not enacted a law to protect the auks and other sea-birds, in a
measure, from 'Akry? Are auks any more precious, for ornament to
our coasts, than hawks, which 'Arry would confound with them, are !
to our landscapes ? If not, then, as Parliament made a law protecting
the sea-fowl from 'Arry, so perhaps it will pass a measure to afford
the raptorial birds some protection from the landed poulterers.

MORE IRISH AFFECTION.

Did anybody expect that Barrett, who was tried for attempting
to murder the Irish landlord, would be convicted? The proofs of his
guilt were so exceedingly strong that his escape was certain. However,
he is to be persecuted with another trial, and may be a " martyr" after !
all. The judge tyrannically told the jury not to be frightened, but the I
insult was hurled' back in the face of the minion of the law._ Still, much
as we admire the glorious sentiment that refused a verdict, it was going
a little too far to endeavour to put a juryman to death for thinking
Barrett ought to be convicted, and really to hurl stones at the
coaches of the judges and break the windows, though a fervid protest
against the tyranny of British law, was visiting on individuals the vices i
of a system. Nor, perhaps, should the landlord have been hunted to
his hotel for having been shot at, and fornot liking it. Yet who—who
would impose the cold rein of reason upon the glowing hearts of an
Affectionate People ?

A Matter of Consequence.

To remove all possible cause for the howl -which has been raised
against vaccination, by all means revert for vaccine lymph to the cow.
That fluid, as obtained from the arm, may not be what it was in the
time of Jenner, having, in three-quarters of a century, very possibly
degenerated.

OUR POULTERERS AND BIRDS OF PREY.

i i

What is to be done "with the stuffed birds and other zoological
specimens in the British Museum':' It seems to have been agreed that!
they must be removed and kept elsewhere. Had they not better be '

destroyed ?

Natural history can surely be of no more use than its objects them-
selves as they exist in nature. If a live sparrow is good for nothing, a
stuffed sparrow is good, if possible, for less.

[n the building above named there is a distinct case exclusively
comprising the birds of Great Britain. If Natural History and
Zoology in general are bosh, British Ornithology in particular is utter
bosh ; that is if Britons have been wise in abandoning British Birds to
gradual extinction.

A writer in the Times, a few days ago, hailing from Wimbome,
lamented the destruction of the birds of prey, which used to keep the
mischievous little birds under, so as to limit their mischief to a reason-
able amount without exterminating them. No doubt a sufficient
number of sparrowhawks would deprive stupid farmers of all excuse
for sparrow clubs.

But now, in any cultivated part, if in any part, of the kingdom, who |
ever sees a sparrowhawk, a kite, a buzzard, a harrier, or an owl, of I
any description, except here and there a barn-owl ? Where will you
iind a raven P The bittern is for us as dead as the dodo. Probably
the heron will go, too. Hoes he not eat trout ?

The birds of prey have been snared and shot down in the interests
of the great poulterers who now hold the landed property of the
country. If pheasants and partridges are of such paramount import-
ance, considered as poultry, that even their sickly youn? ones cannot
be spared for the Falconidce, then let the latter perish. But then, also,
let their stuffed representatives in the British Museum aforesaid, and
elsewhere, be burnt. No ? Are they wanted for popular instruction,
for the information, cultivation, improvement, of the public mind P
Then don't improve their living species, or the other so-called vermin j
either, entirely off the face cf the earth and sky.