Bygone birding: 'The weakest living thing on the face of the earth has its rights'

Extract from the introduction to Our Bird Friends - A Book for All Boys and Girls (1900) by Richard Kearton co-written with his brother, Cherry Kearton.

I am very sorry to say that many country boys are guilty of thoughtlessly smashing birds' eggs, and some even of the unspeakable cruelty of killing little baby chicks, and barring up with stones mother birds brooding in holes in trees and banks, and leaving them to starve to death. 

Such conduct is a disgrace to any British boy, whether he be the son of prince or peasant, and one would like to ask those who do such things what they would think of a giant who treated them in a similar manner. 

Not long ago, a gentleman in Suffolk came upon a boy beating a small brown object in the middle of a turnpike lane with a stick, and exclaiming after each blow: "I'll learn you for being a toad!"

He taught that lad a lesson by applying his stick vigorously to his back, and exclaiming at each stroke: " I'll learn you for being a boy!"

Let us not forget that the weakest living thing on the face of the earth has its rights, and that it is both wicked and cowardly of us to abuse our superiority of mind or body over inoffensive members of the brute creation.