In reply to David Camilleri’s letter of May 31, referring to St Francis and the doves, hunters or what he refers to as “some heartless men”, I would like to remind him of another story with a divine connotation in connection with birds as a source of food.

(Numbers 11:31-32 RSV) “And there went forth a wind from The Lord, and it brought quails from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth. And the people rose all that day, and all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails.”

Wild game birds might not have featured on St Francis’s menu and neither do they on Mr Camilleri’s. Whether as done in the past by the Israelites, or whether birds are caught by hand or shot as in the case of hunters nowadays, God intended such nutritional meat to form part of man’s diet.

So while he venerates statues of St Francis, hunters still depend on divine providence for the birds they love cooked.