The same feeling of desire to display their skill and enterprise in
search after birds' nests in early life renders the youth of England
the enemy almost of the whole animal creation throughout their after
career. The boy prides himself on his dexterity in throwing a stone
or a stick; and he practises on almost every animal that comes in his
way, till he never sees one without the desire to knock it down, or
at least to hit it; and, if it is lawful to do so, he feels it to be
a most serious misfortune not to have a stone within his reach at the
time. As he grows up, he prides himself upon his dexterity in
shooting, and he never sees a member of the feathered tribe within
shot, without a desire to shoot it, or without regretting that he has
not a gun in his hand to shoot it. That he is not entirely destitute
of sympathy, however, with the animals he maims for his amusement is
sufficiently manifest from his anxiety to put them out of pain the
moment he gets them.
A friend of mine, now no more, Captain Medwin, was once looking with
me at a beautiful landscape painting through a glass. At last he put
aside the glass, saying: 'You may say what you like, S--, but the
best landscape I know is a fine black partridge[3] falling before my
Joe Manton.
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