Is it nothing to you to see
The head thrust out through the hopeless wire
And the tiny and the mad desire
To be free, to be free, to be free?
—BENNELL RODD.
To keep a little, living, active creature in a small cage in which he has hardly room to turn round seems so obviously cruel that one might think it would be necessary only to draw attention to the custom to secure its condemnation. Our very language in the proverbial expressions “like a bird in a cage” and “the golden cage which is still a prison” shows that we know the nature of the fate which we inflict on these innocent beings, and yet so callous are we and so little capable of forming an independent judgment about anything to which we have become accustomed that there is no country in which this form of cruelty is not permitted, and, as far as we know, little attempt is made anywhere even to regulate it by law.
Yet the evil is a crying one, involving the life-long misery or death under painful conditions of millions of harmless and naturally happy little beings.
The horror of the bird shop must surely be obvious to anyone who has ever been in one, and the wonder is how any person can be found to live out his own life in such a centre of misery and not be affected by it. It is truly said in a recent Report of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds:—
“The majority of shops where wild birds are on sale remain a disgrace to the humanity of the nation; and unfortunately the sight of captive birds living and dying under wholly unnatural conditions, and often in the most polluted atmosphere and surrounding, is so familiar that the power of judgment has become warped and stunted. A state of things which to the newcomer would appear an incredible barbarism and waste of life is passively acquiesced in, and the dealers’ contention is accepted that crowding and dirt are necessities of the trade, and that cages in which birds cannot turn round are a kindness.”
One writer (Mr. H. F. Spender), describing his own experience in one of the shops visited by him, which is typical of them all, has said of the inmates:—
“Many of them are beating their little bodies with frantic flutterings against the bars of their cages. A bullfinch in an agony of terror is waltzing madly round its cell until it finally drops against the bars panting and exhausted. The skylarks, with a flutter up-wards, knock their heads against the top of their cages. One of them, lying with his breast against the bars as if he would catch a glimpse of the sky, the grey London sky, if singing as if his heart would break. And then he lies still with his eyes closed. The frantic efforts made by these poor birds to regain their freedom are surely the best proof of the outrage on their nature that keeps them in this miserable confinement. Let us enter the shop, where there are rows of similar small boxes in which all kinds of birds are imprisoned. Here is a linnet all puffy, hiding its head in its back feathers, and when one whistles to it it only raises itself to creep further into the recesses of its prison. It is dying, and the bird-shop man admits that ‘many of ’em go that way.’ It is impossible to get the right food, for many of these little birds are eaters of insects and grubs. In other words, they die of slow and lingering starvation.”
Another, Mr. J. Carey, writing from his experience in Scotland, thus describes such a shop:—
“The place was so filthy it was more than unpleasant to go inside. There were rabbits, guinea-pigs, bantams, pigeons, fancy mice, and the unhappy birds; the cages set on shelves in the foul, dark interior and in the window. Skylarks, finches, linnets, yellow-hammers, robins, and many other birds, home and foreign—almost all of them looked sickly and many of them appeared to be dying.
“‘How much?’ was asked.
“‘Redpolls 6d. each, linnets 1s., larks 2s. 6d., chaffinches 2s. 6d.,’ and so on.
“‘Your prices are high.’
“‘You must consider how many of the birds die, and we must make up for the loss.’
“‘No wonder they die in such an atmosphere.’
“‘We can’t keep them in a drawing-room, and the door is open.’”
Well might Mr. Carey call it “sickening and debasing.”
The same writer lets us into one of the secrets of the trade when he tells us that in these shops much loss and injury amongst the birds are frequently caused through mice. It is not possible to keep a cat in such shops, and the mice will not go into traps when seed is lying about in all directions, and he asserts as a fact from his own experience that through a sudden eruption of mice in a bird-shop during one night, over fifty small birds were found in the morning dead or dying from mice having gnawed their feet and wings.
But we need not take our evidence only from “professed humanitarians,” as we are sometimes called. In a paper recently addressed by a bird fancier to his brother fanciers at Swindon, and reported in the Canary and Caged Bird Life, we read the fol-lowing serious admissions as to the customs of these bird lovers:—
“With regard to the matter of cages, I am afraid many fanciers lose a great many birds each year through these not being of sufficient dimensions, as when wild the whole of our feathered friends are continually hopping and flying from one place to another, which, of course, they cannot do when behind the bars of your cage, and the consequence is that unless the cage is of reasonable size a great, many of the organs and muscles of the body lie absolutely dormant which is generally detrimental to the health of the bird. . . .
“The matter of steadying a bird is one of importance and I strongly advise everyone not to use a small cage for this purpose, as it is one of the cruellest acts you can do for the poor thing, for in its efforts to get away from your presence it will very often beat itself nigh past recognition. The goldfinch is caught in large numbers in the autumn and winter months, and I consider it a thousand pities that the law does not protect them farther into the autumn than it does, as very few of the young that fall an easy prey to the catchers survive unless they are in well experienced hands. . . .
“I am sure it is a most pitiful sight to go into the bird dealers’ shops in some of the large cities and see these poor little mites absolutely crammed into the small cages, only to linger there and die, or await a purchaser. I have myself seen as many as four dozen in a box not more than 30 ins. long, 14 ins. deep, and 6 ins. high in a dealers shop in London, and how the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty can ignore cases of this sort I really cannot think.”
With regard to the R.S.P.C.A., it may be said that the society has brought many cases into the court. We append the report of one, which is typical of many others:
“At Lambeth, a bird dealer answered three summonses. An officer of the society stated that on the afternoon of Christmas Day he saw at the defendant’s shop six thrushes and four blackbirds exposed for sale. Most of the birds were in small cages, which were in a most filthy condition. The birds appeared to be suffering greatly, and one blackbird was dead, whilst three others appeared to be dying. He purchased a thrush and a cage for 1s. 9d., but the bird died before he reached his home at Tooting. It was a mere skeleton. He drew the defendant’s attention to the condition of the thrushes and blackbirds, and told him that in the course of his twenty years’ experience he had never seen anything so filthy and disgusting. The defendant replied, ‘You can do what you like. I feed them; what more do you want?’ He also saw nine freshly-caught skylarks at the back of the shop in a filthy cage about 30 ins. long and 10 ins. high. Four of the larks were lying on their sides, dying. The defendant said, ‘I cleaned them out a week ago. They are birds that make a good deal of dirt.’ There were also ten brown linnets, each one being in a very small cage, also in a most filthy condition. In another cage, 15 ins. long by 6 ins. deep, he saw two greenfinches. That cage was also filthy. One bird was lying dead amid the filth, and the other was dying.”
But the private owner or bird fancier may say, “I am not responsible for the dirty and inhumane condition of our bird shops. My birds are always well fed and properly cleaned.” This may be so, but the receiver is held liable as well as the thief, and in like manner the one who creates and keeps alive the demand cannot evade his responsibility for this cruel trade. If there were no customers to buy the birds for their private cages, there would be no bird dealers or catchers. For every bird one sees in a cage in a private house, scores have been caught and have succumbed to ill-treatment and unnatural conditions.
Even if the elementary conditions of food supply and cleanliness are attended to, the bird keeper in the very claim that that is all which is necessary, shows how little he is fit to have a sensitive creature in his charge. The long list of diseases to which captive birds are subject is the surest evidence of the unnaturalness of then lives. Health and happiness are possible to living creatures only through the employment of their faculties—whatever they may be—and the gratification of their instincts. In caged life the birds activities are limited to hopping from one perch to another. How can a being with two wings, for the use of which it is endowed with a muscle many times larger in proportion than the largest m the human body, and equal in weight to one-sixth part of his whole body, possibly keep in health when that muscle is never exercised. How, when the captive’s nature demand constant change of food, can he be healthy with seed and water only? As Mr. W. H. Hudson has well said:—
“Any one of us, even a philosopher, would think it hard to be restricted to dry bread only, yet such a punishment would be small compared with that which we, in our ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on our caged animals—our pets on compulsion. Small, because an almost infinite variety of flavours drawn from the whole vegetable kingdom—a hundred flavours for every one in the dietary which satisfies the heavy mammalian natures—is a condition of the little wild bird’s existence, and essential to its well-being and perfect happiness.”
And just as the bodily organs atrophy from want of use, so also the mental faculties become dull and die in this prison life. The great objection to caging canaries and other birds, bred in captivity, who would die if released, is that it keeps alive by example a cruel fashion. As long as some people keep canaries others will see no harm in keeping goldfinches and linnets. The healthy appreciation of bird-life will not encourage or tolerate the stunted life of any caged bird.
EXCUSES FOR THE PRACTICE.
The commonest argument, or rather excuse, urged in defence of bird-caging is that the birds are happy in their cages or they would not sing. People who use this argument should remember that for one bird whom they hear singing hundreds, less hardy and less able to withstand the captive life, have moped in silence and fallen from the perch dead.
But the most effective reply to this excuse is, that if it were true, then the happiest birds must be those who are confined in the smallest cages—or who have perhaps been blinded by a needle thrust through their eyes —as in such conditions, we are told, they sing most vigorously.
That singing is necessarily a sign of happiness is a fallacy. We know that human prisoners will try to beguile the monotony of their cells by singing the songs learnt in happier times. Invalids in a sick-room will often sing, not because they are happy, but because they feel their lives dreary. We have seen half-clad boys in the snowy street, looking blue and shivering with cold and whistling extra vigorously all the time, but we have never thought that sufficient evidence of their perfect happiness. To exercise one faculty, when others are in abeyance or their use is denied, is often a relief to the whole nature. The singing of birds is an instinct, and its exercise is no doubt a relief, just as prison life is less irksome when talking is allowed than when silence is exacted, but it can in no way be taken as a sign of enjoyment of prison life in one case more than the other.
Another common excuse is that the captive life is really better and happier for the bird than the free life, as he is saved the numerous anxieties and dangers of the latter. To maintain this is to show an entire misconception of an animal’s mind and to attribute to them our human views and lines of thought. We may suffer from anxiety for the future and the dread of possible evils, but these conceptions are almost wholly human. Robert Burns expressed the truth when he said to the mouse turned up by his plough:—
“Still thou art blest compared wi’ me:
The present only toucheth thee;
But, och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
And forward, though I canna see,
I guess an’ fear.”
The life of wild animals is one almost wholly of instinct. Animals do not look before or behind. On the one hand the feeling of thwarted instincts must be ever present to the captive bird, but, on the other, the idea of his congratulating himself that he enjoys security against the possible foes and dangers of the free life is simply absurd. Even a human prisoner, who has some power of making such reflections, will still take the free life with its risks rather than the living death with its “safety.”
The other common excuse that the caged bird brings pleasure to the inhabitants of our towns, who have no chance of hearing his notes in the country, is also quite untenable from the ethical point of view. If birds or men should go of their own free will to visit our cheerless slums and try to gladden them with their voices, we could regard it only as unselfish and praiseworthy work, but that an innocent creature should be forced, in outrage of all his natural instincts, to administer in this way to man’s selfish wishes is only another instance of his tyrannical nature, and should on no condition be countenanced. Presumably some people do find pleasure in keeping birds in captivity, or they would not do it, just as others delight in coursing bagged rabbits or worrying otters for hours at a time; but such things can be pleasure only to those who are deficient in sympathy with animal suffering, and the whole object of our animal protection is to restrain them.
BIRD CATCHING.
The trade of the bird-catcher, which everyone admits to be a cruel and degrading one, depends for its existence almost entirely on the bird-eager. Apart from the question of cruelty to the birds caught, it is an undesirable trade from every point of view. It causes a distinct loss to the country through the ruthless destruction of tens of thousands of birds who are useful to the farmer and gardener. It encourages trespass and law-breaking, and keeps in existence a low class of men who ought to be better employed.
Few people realise the extent of the trade. In one of the reports of the Inspector employed by the R.S.P.B. we read of a town in which “quite a dozen men live by catching,” and “one of them owns a row of houses built out of the proceeds, which is called Linnet Terrace.”
In another of his reports we read the following, which shows the systematic nature, and will give some idea of the extent of the trade in some counties:—
“I went well over the neighbourhood, and found houses that look like small factories, with large pile boxes outside, used as bird warehouses. All round the village the catchers are at work, and the worst of it is they have the permission of the owners. I saw scores of nests containing young birds starved to death through the old ones being captured. Towards evening I went to the station, and on the way were children taking boxes of birds. I waited at the station, and as soon as the men began to arrive with large boxes I was so surprised at the quantities that I jumped into the train and went with them to Cambridge. They filled a large trolley. I went up to the Castle and saw the deputy-inspector of the county, informed him that many boxes of freshly-caught birds were on the platform, and asked him to wire the police to meet them at Liverpool Street. He declined, as he thought the permission clause covered the case. I pointed out that even if it covered the catchers, it did not cover the dealers, and he is going to see what can be done. To give an idea of the trade done, I may mention that on Saturday morning on Cambridge platform fifteen large bird boxes, returned empty, arrived from a dealer in Newcastle for one catcher in this one village. The birds are packed in shallow boxes, about 4 ins. high, without food or water. Returning to town I went to Commercial Street and told the inspector what was going on, and gave him the times the birds arrive every night at Liverpool Street and Bishopsgate, and he is going to take the matter up.”
The demands for our birds for caging purposes, however, is not confined to our own country, and we read in “Bird Notes and News”:
“In December last forty-four dozen larks and greenfinches, newly caught, were sent by a Newcastle dealer to Liverpool for shipment to the United States. On arrival at New York over 80 per cent, of the birds were dead, and those surviving in a weak and half-starved condition.”
“A second shipment of the same size met a like fate. Of the whole thousand birds less than ten per cent, reached New York alive. The shippers’ version of the story is that the birds had every attention, but that 135 of the first lot died before being shipped, and that large numbers died daily during the voyage on account of the inclemency of the weather and the fact that the birds were fresh caught.
“Neither the Bird Protection Acts nor the Acts for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals seem able to touch these cases. They are simply an outcome of the trade in caged birds permitted in England.”
The sale of caged birds of American species is absolutely prohibited throughout the United States. Why, we may ask, should not the sale of caged birds, and their export as well, be absolutely prohibited in England also?
In any estimate of the cruelty inflicted by this trade the case of the decoy birds must not be overlooked. These, which are of various species, are tightly braced with strings which often cut into their flesh. In some cases they are kept moving all the time by a long string, which the catcher holds in his hands and jerks continually to make them flutter about. The following cases gathered from recent reports in the public Press may be taken as typical instances:—
“At Devizes a birdcatcher was fined for taking goldfinches on Sept. 12. He had a trap, which was set near a brook, four decoy birds, and fifteen or sixteen goldfinches in a cage. The police took possession of the birds and set them at liberty on a magistrate’s order.
“At Barnstaple two men were fined for taking goldfinches. They had nets and call-birds, and twenty-three birds, eighteen of which died.
“At Cardiff a catcher was fined on Nov. 26 for cruelty. He was shooting starlings, and in his son’s pocket were found eleven birds, four of which were alive but shockingly mutilated.
“At Chiswick a man was fined, and his nets ordered to be confiscated by the Acton Bench on Oct. 21. He had nets laid, with a decoy linnet, which had to be killed on account of its injured and suffering state.
“Two labourers were fined by the Nottingham Magistrates on Nov. 4 for cruelty to a decoy starling. It was stated that the practice of catching starlings in this way was very prevalent, and the Chairman said it was brutal and ought to be stopped.
“At Long Ashton on Feb. 26 a catcher was summoned for cruelty to a decoy goldfinch and linnet, and for taking a goldfinch. The decoys were braced in the usual way, and completely exhausted.
“At East Ham on Jan. 16 a man was convicted of illegal bird-catching and of cruelty to decoy birds. A chaffinch and a linnet, braced with string which cut into the flesh, were in an exhausted condition, and eleven newly caught birds were in a cage close by.”
THE LEGAL ASPECT.
The laws under which legal proceedings with reference to bird-catching can be taken are the various Wild Bird Protection Acts and the Wild Animals in Captivity Act. There are, however, two serious difficulties in the way of obtaining convictions. The first is that dealers are allowed to have in their possession during close time birds who are not “recently taken.” The second is the difficulty of proving the taking of scheduled birds.
The larger bird-catchers and dealers are, we are told, able to evade the meaning of the law by having, or professing to have, aviaries in which they stock large supplies of birds at the latter end of the open season. This supply can be replenished at any time by fresh birds caught during the close time, and there is no possibility of proving this. The men are always ready to swear that the birds sent to the birdshops are taken from the old stock, and the so-called “aviary” is frequently an ordinary room in which the caged birds are kept.
With regard to the difficulty of proving the taking of scheduled birds, the opinion of the police officers is that they should have a right of search in the case of bird-catchers as in that of poachers, and that catching will never be stopped until it is absolutely prohibited during the close time and all transit of birds by rail is also stopped at that season. Another difficulty in regulating the trade is that the farmers and landowners, who have the right to catch on their own lands, in many cases allow the bird-catchers to do it as their agents; and in addition to this, in some districts, a certain amount of pressure is brought to bear on the farmer, who, if he refuses permission, is apt to find that some destruction of his property, either inanimate or alive, follows—which gives some idea of the kind of men we have to deal with in the bird-catchers.
While we heartily wish that these defects in the law may be rectified and the trade to some extent better regulated, we may repeat that the birdcager is the person who is really responsible for the trade and for the destruction of our charming bird-life, and we ask all to help to put an end to the cruel and selfish practice by declining to keep any birds, whether large or small, imprisoned in cages.
Ernest Bell
The Animals’ Cause, Vol. 1, 1909, pp. 195-202