SOME THREATENED EXOTIC SPECIES 289 



massacre we do not care to dwell, and we would 

 fain hope that it has been exaggerated. We cannot 

 understand, for instance, how the old birds are said 

 to be shot down at the nesting-places when their 

 helpless young are already hatched. The delicate 

 plumes of the Egrets are donned for the pairing 

 season, and are consequently at their best before 

 the eggs are actually incubated. As the breeding- 

 season progresses, these fragile plumes abrade and 

 are damaged in various ways, so that the plume- 

 hunter is acting against his own interests in 

 shooting the old birds (which we doubt) at a time 

 when the young are abroad and the prized feathers 

 almost worthless. 



Of the European species, mention may be first 

 made of the Great White Egret {Ardea alba). 

 Although found in more or less abundance through- 

 out Africa, this fine bird has only two important 

 breeding-places in Europe — one of them in the 

 valley of the Danube, the other in South Russia. 

 In the former locality the bird used to be abundant, 

 but the plume-hunters have thinned its numbers 

 most disastrously, and we may fairly class it as a 

 species threatened with extermination in Europe. 

 Its snow-white plumes, adorning the neck and 

 drooping gracefully from the lower back, are the 

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