Posted by Ed Kiser on August 11, 2003 at 15:49:07 from 152.163.252.103 user Kisered.
We see the message in several places. The Coot Club is trying to protect the birds. They are shocked at the Eel Man's shooting of birds. In Great Northern, their antagonist wants to kill the birds. Geoge Owdon collects eggs to sell them. In Winter Holiday, they were saving their scraps so that later, they could take them ashore and bury them. Eating on High Topps they avoided the littering that others might otherwise do. Titty was thankful that the hedgepig now had a decent place to get water from her well. As for their digging of latrines, they were so discrete we did not even hear about it.
Maybe it is a sign of those times, but there is the idea that collecting monkeys and parrots for pets is an OK thing to do. Those that sell monkeys have to take them from their parents when still quite young -- and that means to have to kill the parents to get their babies for sale. And yet, Captain Flint indicates that next time he gets to South America, he will "pick up" a parrot and monkey for Titty and Roger.
This presents a conflicting picture, at least that is the way it looks by today's standards. These ideas about capturing pets from the jungle may have been quite different 70 years ago.
Ed Kiser, South Florida