PLEA FOR SMALL BIRDS.
[To TIIE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—In the Spectator of December 28th, under the above heading, a correspondent draws attention to the suffering resulting from the snaring of small birds as practised in Essex. In this neighbourhood the practice is attended with still greater cruelty. Decoy birds are exposed in small wire cages (it was done one morning lately when the frost regis- tered eighteen degrees). Wire fences are utilised, cord lines being run from post to post, and these, as well as the top wires of the fence, smeared with bird-lime. Any bird alight- ing of no pecuniary value is too often flung aside and left to perish. Until the bird-lime dries the smeared wires prove regular death-traps for any birds that may afterwards chance to alight on them. Under the existing law in Scotland, I understand, the police have no power to interfere ; and the only remedy which suggests itself to me is either to forbid the capture of small birds with bird-lime—to enact a close -time all the year round—or to declare the practice, without a written permit from the proprietor of the ground, illegal. As a subscriber for-thirty years, mall crave the help of the Spectator to assist in putting down a practice revolting to every humane person P—I am, Sir, &a, PAT. L. JOHNSTON.
Templehall House, Long (organ, Perthshire.
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