Ill 



COMMERCIAL BIRD-BREEDING. 



(For the beg-inning of this article, see the April number. What 

 follows here was inadvertently cut off without a continuation 

 line. ) 



To meet the difficulties of the problem the correspondents 

 advocate bird-farming, also a commission to take evidence 

 with a view to ascertaining the extent to which the trade 

 in the skins and feathers of birds may be carried on consist- 

 ently with the maintaining of the numbers of the birds- 

 affected. As to regulation and breeding they present the 

 following arguments : 



"In the case of such polygamous birds as the monal or 

 Impeyan pheasant (Lophophorus refulgens) it is well known 

 that a judicious thinning out of the cocks is beneficial to. 

 the species, because the unmated cocks worry the hens and 

 interfere with their breeding arrangements. As the trade 

 require only the skinss of the cocks it is obvious that numbers 

 of these can be supplied in places where the birds are num- 

 erous without reducing the numbers of the birds. 



"This is not mere conjecture. The experiment has been 

 tried and has proved successful. ^Moreover, pea-fowl and the 

 various pheasants can be farmed. Pea-chicks are reared in 

 the Zoological Gardens at Lahore by hatching the eggs in 

 an incubator and giving over the young birds to the care of 

 the barndoor hen. 



"An enormous trade is carried on in the nuptial plumes of 

 some species of egret. These plumes are known in commerce 

 as 'ospreys.' There is no reason of which we are aware 

 why egret farming should not prove as profitable as ostrich 

 farming. 



"Moreover, since Egrets nest in large colonies it should 

 be possible, with proper management, to remove the nuptial 

 plumes from Avild birds without harming them. Some of the 

 birds of which the plumage is largely imported, notably the 

 Indian paroquets (Palaeornis), are very destructive to the 

 cereal crops. In some parts of India these paroquets are so 

 numerous as to be a scourge to the cultivator. In such local- 

 ities the paroquets might, with advantage, be judiciously 

 weeded out." 



The correspondents mention that the government of France^ 

 last March stated that it had no intention of prohibiting the 

 import of plumage into that country, "because such a prohi- 

 bition would have the effect of causing very great loss to- 

 an industry which supports a French working-class popula- 

 tion of at least 50.000 persons and involves a turnover of more: 



