CRUELTY IN SPORT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.'
SIR,—Apropos of Mr. Stephen Gwynn's excellent reply to the extremely wrong-minded sentimentality expressed in Mr. G. H. Cunningham's letter (Spectator, July 26th), I want to add the following : Mr. Gwynn may not know that the Chicago murderer, N. F. Leopold, Jr., belonged to the modern (often super-sensitive) school of Nature photo- graphers, and was evidently a bird student of some ability. See, for instance, his paper on " Iiirtland's Warbler " in the Auk for January, 1924. I do not know whether Leopold was a sportsman or not (we all hope not, but I have read nothing of this murder trial myself). But the point is that his aesthetic appreciation of bird song, his tireless observations on the nest habits of a rather little-known warbler, did not in the least prevent his unnatural search for new morbid sensations. Possibly this news may come as a slight shock to those who see a great humanizing influence in modern "Nature study," so-called. Nevertheless, it is an interesting point in pursuance of Mr. Gwynn's thesis.—! am, Sir, &e.,
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