The Slaughter of the Innocent. 125 



life by aid of a field-glass, when objects were not near 

 enough to be seen by his unaided eye. Surely an example 

 of " the wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable?'' Ada 

 Marie Peck and Olive Thoren Miller are well versed in bird- 

 lore. I am ignorant whether they prize slain birds for pur- 

 poses of examination, but the whole tenor of their writings 

 is contrary to such a supposition. 



Woman, ever before supposed tender hearted and compas- 

 sionate, has, nevertheless, occasioned and sanctioned the 

 most cruel and greatest destruction of feathered species. 

 We may congratulate ourselves, that an earnest crusade has 

 begun against the thoughtless fashion of adorning bonnets 

 and dresses with bird skins and wings, though not less than 

 5,000,000 birds were, last year, killed for millinery purposes. 

 This does not include young ones starved, nor eggs spoiled. 

 One party in Texas contracted to furnish 10,000 aigrettes. 

 A single village and district on Long Island, sent, in four 

 months, 70,000 skins, to taxidermists. During one month, 

 1,000,000 rails and bobolinks were taken in the vicinity of 

 Philadelphia, and marketed there. An agent for a French 

 house secured and shipped home 40,000 sea-gull skins. One 

 auction store at London sold 700,000 South American birds 

 in four months. Naturalists, hunters and dealers assure us 

 these figures are but examples of the slaughter going on 

 throughout our country. Many such statements must have 

 met your eyes. One streetcar, in New York city, was re- 

 cently reviewed by an ornithologist, who reports as follows: 

 Thirteen passengers were women, eleven of whom wore 

 birds on their hats. He counted twenty-six birds in all, two 

 women having as high as seven little birds each, in one case 

 making a solid square foot of this hideous ornamentation. 

 In one Sabbath school of fifty-four persons, I found the hats 

 of fifteen girls, and that of one prominent lady teacher, 

 decorated with wings. Unfortunately, the kinds demanded, 

 are our most useful and beautiful birds. 



Meanwhile, field crops have been suffering from an in- 

 crease of insects, in no year more noticeable that at present. 

 It is estimated, these pests yearly destroy in the United 

 States more than double all we export of wheat. Such a 



