NOBTH AMERICAN MAESH BIRDS 153 



was much less shy and so more easily killed and because its short and 

 delicate plumes were more in demand than the larger, stiffer plumes 

 of the American egret. For these three reasons it suffered far more 

 at the hands of the plume hunters and came much nearer being ex- 

 terminated. But the same timely efforts stopped the slaughter 

 before it was too late and saved the species, which is now increasing 

 in protected localities. 



The National Association of Audubon Societies in its campaign of 

 education, circulated a great mass of literature on the subject. In its 

 special leaflet No. 21 is a most striking picture of the horrors of the 

 plume trade; it is a quotation from a paper by Mr. A. H. E. Mat- 

 tingley, of Melbourne, Australia, published in The Emu; it reads as 

 follows : 



Notwithstanding the extreme heat and the myriads of mosquitos, I determined 

 to revisit the locality during my Christmas holidays, in order to obtain one pic- 

 ture only — namely, that of a white crane, or egret, feeding its young. When near 

 the place, I could see some large patches of white, either floating in the water 

 or reclining on the fallen trees in the vicinity of the egret's rookery. This set 

 me speculating as to the cause of this unusual sight. As I drew nearer, what a 

 spectacle met my gaze — a sight that made my blood fairly boil with indigna- 

 tion. There, strewn on the floating water weed, and also on adjacent logs, were 

 at least 50 carcasses of large white and smaller plumed egrets — nearly one-third 

 of the rookery, perhaps more — the birds having been shot off their nests contain- 

 ing young. What a holocaust! Plundered for their plumes. What a monu- 

 ment of human callousness! There were 50 birds ruthlessly destroyed, besides 

 their young (about 200) left to die of starvation! This last fact was betokened 

 by at least 70 carcasses of the nestlings, which had become so weak that their 

 legs had refused to support them and they had fallen from the nests into the 

 water below, and had been miserably drowned; -while, in the trees above the 

 remainder of the parentless young ones could be seen staggering in the nests, 

 some of them falling with a splash into the water, as their waning strength 

 left them too exhausted to hold up any longer, while others simply stretched 

 themselves out on the nest and so expired. Others, again, were seen trying in 

 vain to attract the attention of passing egrets, which wei'e flying with food in 

 their bills to feed their own young, and it was a pitiful sight indeed to see these 

 starvlings with outstretched necks and gaping bills imploring the passing birds 

 to feed them. What a sickening sight! How my heart ached for them! How 

 could anyone but a cold-blooded, callous monster destroy in this wholesale man- 

 ner such beautiful birds — the embodiment of all that is pure, graceful, and good? 



The same scenes were enacted many, many times in this country. Picture 

 the cost of a plume! The mother bird lies dead on the ground, the plumes rudely 

 torn from her bleeding back, her reward for her maternal devotion. The father- 

 less and motherless young stand in the nest; there is no one to feed them and 

 they are growing weaker day by day. At length, too weak to stand or cry for 

 food, they sink down in the nest, awaiting the end; death will be a blessed 

 relief. 



But, happily, all this is now passed and we can look forward to 

 better things. Plume hunting has been largely stamped out, the 

 egrets are protected in many places and they are increasing. One of 

 the most striking examples of their coming back is shown in the work 



