NORTH AMERICAN MARSil BIRDS 143 



A few such plumes are picked up and sold, but they are known as 

 ''dead plumes" and bring in the market about one-fifth of the price 

 of "live plumes." T. Gilbert Pearson (1912) published a long 

 list of affidavits emphasizing the falsity of such propaganda, among 

 which the following, from an old plume hunter, is most striking: 



My work led me into every part of Venezuela and Colombia where these birds 

 are to be found, and I have never yet found or heard tell of any garceros that 

 were guarded for the purpose of simply gathering the feathers from the ground. 

 No such a condition exists in Venezuela. The story is absolutely without foun- 

 dation, in my opinion, and has simply been put forward for commercial purposes. 

 The natives of the country, who do virtually all of the hunting for feathers, are not 

 provident in their nature, and their practices are of a most cruel and brutal nature. 

 I have seen them frequently pull the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the 

 crippled birds to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their young 

 in the nests above, which were calling for food. I have known these people to 

 tie and prop up wounded egrets on the marsh where they would attract the atten- 

 tion of other birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they 

 die of their wounds or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants 

 of that country actually eating out the eyes of these wounded, helpless birds that 

 were tied up by the plume hunters. I could write you many pages of the horrors 

 practiced in gathering aigrette feathers in Venezuela by the natives for the mil- 

 linery trade of Paris and New York. 



Fortunately for this and the following species these conditions have 

 now largely changed and plume hunting has become a thing of the 

 past in most of the regions where it was formerly practiced. The 

 vigorous educational and legislative campaign of the National Asso- 

 ciation of Audubon Societies, and other organizations and individuals 

 interested in bird protection, have created a world-wide sentiment 

 against it and have resulted in adequate laws to prevent it. Many 

 colonies have been successfully protected. Charles J. Pennock wrote 

 me in 1917 that egrets were more numerous in Florida than they had 

 been for many years, since the days of plume hunting. In Texas in 

 1923 I traveled around with an old plume hunter who told me that 

 no plume hunting had deeu done in Texas for many years and that 

 the egrets were increasing. Two beautiful species have been saved. 



Fall. — This and several other species of herons are much given to 

 northward wanderings in summer and fall; it is usually, if not always, 

 the young birds that indulge in these erratic journeys after the nest- 

 ing season is over. We do not know whore they come from or how 

 far they travel; perhaps systematic banding of young birds may 

 throw some light on the subject. But they appear at frequent 

 intervals, and sometimes in considerable numbers, as far east as New 

 York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. I have seen the 

 bird on Cape Cod as early as July 4 and it has been seen as late as 

 September. Throughout the southern portion of its range, from 

 Florida and the Gulf States, it is permanently resident; but it retires 

 in the fall from the more northern portions of its breeding range. 



