THE PLUME PIRATES 335 



least, such women as wear aigrettes do so. I 

 don't say that women are absolutely unteachable 

 where their personal adornment is concerned, but 

 nearly so. Pearson found this in his experience 

 with a girl who was employed in the offices of the 

 Audubon Society. 



'* * There was a time,' he writes, 'when I used 

 to think that any woman with human instincts 

 would give up the wearing of feathers at once, on 

 being told of the barbaric cruelties involved in 

 their acquistion. But I have learned, to my 

 amazement, that such is not the case. 



* * ' Not long ago, I received one of the shocks of 

 my life. Somewhat over two years ago, a young 

 woman came to work in our office. I suppose she 

 had never heard, except casually, of the great 

 scourge of the millinery trade in feathers. 



" 'Since that time, however, she has been in 

 daily touch with all the important eiforts made 

 in this country and abroad to legislate the traffic 

 out of existence, to guard from the plume-hunters 

 the colonies of Egrets and other water birds and 

 to educate public sentiment to a proper apprecia- 

 tion of the importance of bird protection. She 

 has typewritten a four-hundred page book on birds 

 and bird protection, has acknowledged the receipt 



