105 



license fees, for the purchase of game birds to turn loose in 

 field and wood. 



In view of these things, it will be interesting to give some 

 account of a controversy, or at least a discussion from oppo- 

 site view-points, now going on in England between traders 

 in plumage and those who are anxious to save from extermi- 

 nation the many beautiful feathered creatures that are killed 

 ior the sake of their plumage. Of course, no one here is 

 directly interested on eitlier side of the contest, but, in the 

 matter of diversified industries, there is an attractive phase 

 of the matter to local people in the suggestion of solving 

 the problem through the breeding of birds valuable for their 

 plumage, especially as a few people here have gone into the 

 raising of foreign varieties of pheasants and other fancy bird 

 ■stock. 



Two joint correspondents of Tropical Life, in the ]\Iarch 

 number of that magazine, refer to efiforts being made by the 

 l)ird protectionists to induce the British government to pro- 

 hibit absolutely the importation into the United Kingdom 

 of the plumage of practically all birds save that of the ostrich 

 and those of which the flesh is eaten as food. They say : 



"So far as we can see there is not the slightest chance that 

 any bill prohibiting the import of plumage will become law. 

 Even if such an act were placed on the Statute book, the 

 l^enefit to the birds would be small unless either similar enact- 

 ments were passed in all European countries and in the United 

 States of America or laws were passed prohibiting the ex- 

 port of plumage from the various tropical and sub-tropical 

 countries in which the feather-yielding birds occur. Those 

 who have followed the controversy know well that there is 

 not the least likelihood of the other European countries passing 

 acts prohibiting the import of plumage." 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY 



Mention has been made in previous numbers of the Forester 

 regarding an agitation throughout British tropical dominions for 

 the establishment of a tropical agricultural university. Both the 

 agricultural press of London and of colonies wide apart have been 

 discussing the subject for some years past. The Forester, on dif- 

 ferent occasions, has put forth the suggestion that the College of 

 Hawaii should be advertised in British tropical countries and 

 their motherland as an institution possessing at least the basic 

 conditions v,-hich it is urged a tropical university should have. 

 It has the nucleus of an efficient faculty, abundant material for 

 purposes of teaching and study, the right environment — while in 

 location it offers perhaps as moderate a cost of maintenance in 



