Many years ago cockchafers were publicly sold in Paris for children to torture to death. The amusement consisted in running a hooked pin through the insect’s tail, fastening a thread thereto, and watching the poor creature spin in the air. After the poor beetle was too enfeebled to expand its wings, it was slowly dismembered, the child being greatly amused at its endeavors to crawl, as leg after leg was pulled from the body. A similar custom, though in a more cruel form, prevails in Italy, the creatures which are tortured by way of sport being more capable of feeling pain than are insects. Birds are employed in this country for the amusement of children. A string is tied to the leg of the bird, and the unfortunate creature, after its powers of flight are exhausted, is generally plucked alive and dismembered. The idea of cruelty does not seem to enter at all in these practices, but they are done from the sheer incapacity of understanding that a bird or a beast can be a fellow-creature. Italians are notorious for their cruel treatment of animals, and if remonstrated with become very much astonished and reply, “Non è Cristiano,” that is to say, “It is not a Christian.” Englishmen have little to boast of on this score. Bear-baiting was abolished by the Puritans, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Even at the present day, both in England and in this country, there is a latent hankering after similar scenes, and dog-fighting, rat-killing and cock-fighting, even though they are now contrary to law, are still practised in secret. Similarly the sense of humor is developed in the lower animals by causing pain or annoyance to some other creature, and the animal acts in precisely the same manner as a savage or a child. Sparrows, as might be expected from their character, will gratify their feelings of aversion by banding together for the purpose of mobbing some creature to which they have an objection. In Hardwicke’s _Science Gossip_ for December, 1872, there is a short account of a number of sparrows mobbing a cat. Evidently the cat had intended making a meal on one of the birds, but was greatly mistaken, for the sparrows dashed upon him so fiercely, that he soon turned tail and ran into the house, one of the sparrows actually pursuing him into the house. The poor cat ran up-stairs, and was found crouching in terror under one of the beds. This happened in London, where the sparrows are less numerous now than they used to be.