290 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



fatal attraction. The Little Egret (Ardea garzetta), 

 is likewise much persecuted for the sake of its 

 elegant dorsal plumes. It also is found over most 

 parts of Africa, but it is only a local summer 

 migrant to Europe from Spain in the west to South 

 Russia in the east. It breeds in colonies, especially 

 in the valley of the Danube, and from this district 

 great quantities of plumage have been obtained. 

 This pretty little bird furnishes what is known in 

 the plume trade as " osprey " ; nothing to do with 

 the bird of prey of that name, but the delicate rigid 

 filiform feathers that spring in graceful tufts from 

 the back and sides of the Little Egret and some 

 other species. This filmy plumage is the wedding- 

 ornament, donned in spring, so that its procuration 

 involves the slaughter of the bird just previous to 

 reproduction. Both these Herons under ordinary 

 circumstances are wary and shy, seldom allowing 

 man to approach them within gunshot ; but at their 

 breeding-places much of this vigilance is relaxed, 

 and their slaughter is a comparatively easy under- 

 taking. Some of the American species of Herons 

 have been even more scandalously butchered at 

 their breeding resorts in Florida and elsewhere. 



We have already alluded to one species of Vulture 

 that is said to be fast becoming exterminated, and 



