ANIMALS AND BIRDS IN SPAIN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sut,—I was very much interested in Sir W. Beach Thomas's remarks on the trapped partridges which he has recently seen in Spain. When I was in Andalusia, in 1895, I saw numbers of these unfortunate birds in very small cages outside the cottages in many of the villages, about the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. I understood that they were used as decoys, and I have since learnt that they were often kept for fighting one another.
I am sorry to hear that the attitude towards birds and beasts which Sir William so deplores is still prevalent in Spain. rmet with a terrible example of that attitude on that same -Visit.. My companion, who was travelling by diligence to Jaen, remonstrated with the driver for unmercifully flogging a horse which was evidently dying. The driver retorted that it was because the horse was dying that he did so flog it. There was nothing worth saving in it !—I am, Sir, &c.,
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