" SCUGGY-HUNTING" IN THE NEW FOREST: [To TIM EDITOR OF
Tea "SPECTILTOR."1 SITC,—It will surely come as an unpleasant shock to most of your readers to learn that such a degrading and barbarous pastime flourishes in our midst as the massacre of squirrels- on Christmas Day. According to an account published in the Hampshire Advertiser of December 27th, "quite a number of squirrels [dies seuggy] are killed every Christmas Day in the New Forest" by parties of young men who " hammer on the tree-trunks to make the squirrels come out" and then bring them to the ground dead or dying by "throwing sort, heavy sticks" at them. What a way to keep the birthday of the' Prince of Peace, by
"Murder of His bast Of harmless beings "!
Are there no laws which touch this wanton cruelty ? If not, it points to the need for snaking the New Forest a sanctuary for all wild life, as has often been suggested before. Mean- while it is to be hoped that residents in the Forest will use, their influence between now and next Christmas to stanip out " scuggy-hunting," thus saving the young men from a bruta- lizing occupation and the squirrels from a cruel death.—I ame
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