26 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 15

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Without endorsing extreme statements, often supported v inapt human analogies, about the misery of caged wild irds. I wish to point out that perhaps the most damning idenec of cruelty is generally ignored.

I refer to the high mortality among newly caught birds. his I myself saw, when surgeon to a liner on South American rviee, among green parrots brought aboard for shipment to gland. Large numbers were thrown overboard dead ; lough I cannot say what their proportion was to the survivors. have some reason to believe that there is also a considerable ortality among newly caught British birds.—I am, Sir, &c.,