CRUELTY TO CAGED BIRDS • [To . the . Editor of THE
SPECTATOR, • SIR,—Two years ago I saw a whole large railway-wagon on the quay at Dakar, Senegal, filled with crowded cages of small birds .awaiting shipment. Their number I estimated at somewhere between two and four thousand.
What is wanted is an international agreement to prohibit the sale of all wild birds and animals, providing for importa- tion permits for persons who bring a very limited number as pets, or accredited zoological gardens, but putting an end to exploitation by dealers, circuses and travelling menageries. The sufferings and mortality among animals captured and imported by dealers, especially among monkeys, are horrible to contemplate. Far less than a century ago we Europeans were equally callous to the sufferings of negroes, procured- and shipped under very similar conditions. The Rev. Horace Waller, describing the mortality on the slave routes in Africa, said, " It is like sending up for a large block of ice to London in the hot weather ; you know that a certain amount will melt away before it reaches you in the country as 'it travels down ; - but that what remains will be quite sufficient for your wants."
The slave trade in human' beings shocks us now. The slave trade in birds and beasts attains ever greater dimensions.
.--Yours truly, - LILIAN M. RTJSSELL. Ashburn, Strone by Durtoon, Argyll. •
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