RABBIT AND BIRD TRAPS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—In company I doubt not with many others, I consider the thanks of the public are due to you for the valuable article Country Life and Sport " published by you in your issue of June 18th. Although the pole trap has become illegal, I have received information from certain reliable and independent sources that after the Act was passed its hatefully cruel use was continued on various properties, the poles being erected on secluded spots and therefore hidden from the ordinary observer.
When a bird perches on the above trap it snaps on the legs of the victim and the bones being shattered the wretched bird still attached to the trap by its tendons flutters head down- wards, perhaps for hours, in excruciating agony until the keeper going his rounds comes to relieve it by death. The abominable cruelty involved in the use of the steel rabbit gin has been so thoroughly described in your article of the 18th ult. that I need not recapitulate, but I may observe that its use has not yet become illegal.
It is much to be hoped now that attention has been drawn to the above abuses a healthy agitation may arise which will succeed in the abolition by law of the steel gin and the complete suppression of the use of the already illegal pole trap.—I am, Sir, &c., 1112:31ANITAS.
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