AND MAMMALS.
There is some real hope that within a few years we may see the end of many of the cruelties of trapping owing to the extension of the trade in captive and half-domesticated animals. It is curious that two of the better Christmas stories of the year (both translated from the Norwegian) concern the trapper and bring out the essential cruelty of the profession, even in its most humane agents. The recent poultry show (of all occasions !) in London was used as a demonstration of the growth of the industry of fur-breeding ; and though the silver fox is still the most valuable of these animals, the keeping of muskrats is likely perhaps to be a yet bigger business. The killing is quite painless according to the latest methods, in which anaesthetics, or the lethal chamber, are preferred.
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