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attitude." Of the Dublin Zoological Gardens, on the contrary, he speaks 

 in terms of cordial praise ; but it is noteworthy that his chief reflection 

 after going through them, too, was that " these collections will in time 

 teach zoological painters the characteristic attitudes of animals, of which 

 Audubon and myself are the only persons who have succeeded in attempting 

 to afford an idea in so far as regards birds." It is to be hoped that the 

 time has come when MacGillivray's expectations on this point have been 

 in some measure fulfilled, and when, if he were writing again, he would 

 no longer feel called on to describe as part of his aim that of showing 

 to the public " that ornithology is not necessarily so repulsive as some 

 of its votaries represent." 



C. B. M. 



A PLEA FOR BIRD-KILLING. 



Aigrettes and Birdskins : the truth about their collection and export. 

 By Harold Hamel Smith, Editor of " Tropical Life." Foreword 

 by Sir J. D. Rees, K.C.I.E., London. (" Tropical Life" Publishing 

 Department). 



Mr. Hamel Smith is an advocate for the traders in ornamental plumage, 

 to whose confraternity he himself belonged until a few years ago. He 

 disapproves very strongly of all the efforts that have been made in 

 Parliament (by Lord Avebury and others) to secure measures to check 

 the killing of birds in tropical countries for the purposes of this trade, 

 and he complains of continual misrepresentations and unfairness being 

 measured out to the traders by those who press for prohibitive measures 

 against them. It is probably true enough that exaggerated charges have 

 sometimes been made ; but Mr. Hamel Smith hardly sets an example 

 of greater fairness when he argues that it is hypocritical for Englishmen to 

 profess to see cruelty in the killing of birds for millinery purposes while 

 they themselves think it legitimate sport to kill them for the table. 

 Whatever may be thought of the ethics of sport, there is at least a vast 

 difference between shooting birds whose breeding season is over and 

 shooting them — as must chiefly be done by those engaged in the feather 

 trade — at the time when they are likely to have young in their nests. 

 Leaving the question of cruelty aside, Mr. Smith admits the reasonableness 

 of the wish — even from a plumage trader's point of view — to prevent the 

 most beautiful birds from being exterminated ; and his attacks on the 

 Bills that have been introduced for this purpose are chiefly devoted to 

 proving — (i) that none of them, if passed, would suffice to prevent 

 extermination, so long as they stood alone ; and (2) that they would be 

 quite superfluous for that object, if effective means could be found for 

 establishing and maintaining a close season for every threatened species 

 of bird at its centre of origin. Both contentions are correct ; but they 

 do not carry us very far towards solving the question what is best to 

 be done under the circumstances that actually exist. 



C. B. M. 



