142 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



much regularity just after sunset, and after circling about the tree once or twice 

 alighted on its branches. One now heard a low croaking chorus as the birds 

 selected perches and settled themselves for the night. This rookery was but 200 

 yards from the houses and mill of the estate, and not more than 60 feet from a 

 well-traveled road. The confidence thus displayed by the birds in their choice 

 of a roost was in striking contrast with the habits of the shy, much-hunted egret 

 of Florida, 



Enemies. — Great damage is done in the breeding rookeries of this 

 and all the smaller herons by crows and vultures, which devour all 

 the eggs and young that they can find unguarded. The bird pho- 

 tographer, who drives these shy birds from their nests and keeps 

 them off for some time, is likely to find most of the nests in his vicinity 

 rilled of their contents. 



Man has always been the arch enemy of the egrets. The destruc- 

 tion wrought by the plume hunters has been most cruel and waste- 

 ful; as the plumes are at the best during the breeding season, the 

 birds were shot in their nesting rookeries, leaving the eggs to rot or 

 the young to starve in the nests. No thought was had for the future 

 and whole rookeries were systematically annihilated. 



The slaughter began in Aubudon's (1840) time. He speaks of "a 

 person who, on offering a double-barreled gun to a gentleman near 

 Charleston for 100 white herons fresh killed, received that number 

 and more the next day." His friend Bachman brought home 46 

 from a single day's shooting and said that ''many more might have 

 been killed, but we became tired of shooting them." And the slaugh- 

 ter continued with unabated fury in all parts of the world where 

 egrets were to be found. Herbert K. Job (1905), writing at a time 

 when the egrets were at about their lowest ebb, published some inter- 

 esting figures to account for their disappearance. He writes: 



When we know about the millinery plume trade, we understand the reason. 

 In 1903 the price for plumes offered to hunters was $32 per ounce, which makes 

 the plumes worth about twice their weight in gold. There will always be men 

 who would break any law for such profit. No rookery of these herons can long 

 exist, unless it be guarded by force of arms day and night. Here are some offi- 

 cial figures of the trade from one source alone, of auctions at the London Com- 

 mercial Sales Rooms during 1902. There were sold 1,608 packages of "ospreys," 

 that is, herons' plumes. A package is said to average in weight 30 ounces. This 

 makes a total of 48.240 ounces. As it requires about four birds to make an 

 ounce of plumes, these sales meant 192,960 herons killed at their nests, and from 

 two to three times that number of young or eggs destroyed. Is it, then, any 

 ■wonder that these species are on the verge of extinction? 



The absurd story was circulated by the millinery trade, as an 

 argument in their defense, that the aigrettes were shed by the birds 

 and picked up from the ground under the nests in protected 

 rookeries; and many people believed the story. I have explored 

 many rookeries, looking for shed plumes, but can count on the fingers 

 of one hand all I have ever found; and these were soiled and worn. 



