Yet, profitless and wanton Bird-murder is common. The cliffs on the coasts of these islands are the resort of numerous kinds of Sea-Fowl, and these Fowl, we are told, are slaughtered by thousands, not merely for the sake of their feathers, but actually for the mere savage pleasure of killing. What speculation can enter into such a proceeding it may puzzle the reader to imagine; but it seems that the wing feathers of the poor White Gull are now inquired for in the plume-trade, and we are actually told of an order given by a single house for 10,000 of these unhappy Birds. When these facts were stated at the Meeting of the British Association, in August, 1868, at Norwich, a lady stood up boldly in defence of her sex, and declared that they sinned only through ignorance, and would never willingly wear the feathers of a Bird destroyed in the act of feeding its young. That part of the case, therefore, ought to be now in safe hands. In the Isle of Man a law has been passed, called the "Seagull Preservation Act," protecting these Birds by heavy penalties, on the ground of their utility in removing fish offal and guiding fishermen to shoals of fish. At a certain point of our shores a similar protection has been established. A visitor to the South Stack Lighthouse, on the coast of Anglesey, may see prodigious numbers of Sea-Fowl as tame as complete safety can make them. It has been ascertained that in thick weather, when neither light can be distinguished nor signal seen, the incessant scream of these Birds gives the best of all warnings to the mariner of the vicinity of the rock. The noise they make can be heard at a greater distance than the tolling of the great bell; and so valuable was this danger-signal considered, that an order from the Trinity House forbad even the firing of the warning gun, lest the colony of the Sea-Fowl should be disturbed. The signals of the bell and the cannon might be neglected or overpowered, but the Birds were always there and always audible.