A FAR ADVENTURE 313 



was not proof against the weather, it was still 

 filled with thousands of pairs of albatross wings 

 to serve for next season's plunder. 



An old cistern back of the buildings told a story 

 of brutality unrivaled in any of the sanguinary 

 records of the cruelty of plume-hunters. In this 

 dry cistern, during the months that the plume- 

 hunters had been in the island the year before, the 

 living birds had been kept by the hundred in order 

 that they should slowly starve to death. In this 

 way, the fatty tissue next to the skin was slowly 

 used up, leaving the skin almost free from grease, 

 so that when the skins should be prepared for the 

 market, little or no cleaning would be necessary. 



"Is cleaning so difficult?" asked Shan, when 

 this was explained to him. 



''No," said the Feather Man; '4t saves a little 

 money, that's all." 



The wings found in the outbuilding had evi- 

 dently been cut from living birds and the birds had 

 been allowed to stagger, bleeding, about the island 

 until they fell exhausted and died. Strewn about 

 the nesting sites were the bodies and skeletons of 

 nestlings, starved to death by the killing of their 

 mothers. Many young birds, whose plumage was 

 useless for the market, had had their legs broken, 



