BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



69 



by the fact that the killing of plume-birds cannot 

 be dealt with by our national Bird Protection laws 

 since millinery feathers are imported from distant 

 countries. And even in New York, Audubon 

 correspondents add, " Ospreys " are at present as 

 much wcrn as ever. 



Under the heading of " The Barbarians " the 

 Nation, June ist, 1907, contained a scathing attack 

 on some of the fashionable cruelties of the day, and 

 more particu'arly on the wearing of " Ospreys " 

 and other wild-bird plumes by women. 



For many years past the brutality of the fashion 

 has been perfectly well known. There is no 

 dispute about the facts, or the only dispute is a 

 shameless lie of the milliners, who will blandly 

 inform a customer that the plume is "artificial," 

 if she shows some glimmering of compunction 

 about wearing it For the trim- 

 ming of women's hats, all the most beautiful 

 creatures of the world are being exterminated by 

 the ton, and, in a generation or two, people will 

 only know from wretched specimens in museums 

 what was the splendour of such birds as the 

 Bird-of-Paradise, the Golden Pheasant, the Trogon, 

 the Glossy Ibis, and many kinds of Humming 

 Bird and Parrot. 



PLUME SALES. 



Birds-OF-Paradise and Albatross quill- 

 feathers were leading features of the sale at the 

 London Commercial Sale-rooms on April 16th, 

 1907. The former " met with an active demand," 

 and prices were firm, light plumes selling at 

 10s. to 41s. each, dark plumes 39s. to 52s.. Rifles 

 4s. 3d. to 5s. 6d., green 9d. to iod. There were also 

 sold 346 skins of the Impeyan Pheasant from India, 

 which fetched from 3s. 7d. to 8s. 3d. each, and a 

 large number of Crowned Pigeons'heads and necks, 

 from New Guinea. Peacocks' feathers were not in 

 much demand. Of Albatross win?-quills, etc., 

 there were 62 packages, which sold well at from rjd. 

 to 5; ! d. each quill There were 422 packages of 

 osprey feathers catalogued. 



For the sale on June nth, 348 packages of 

 "osprey" feathers were catalogued, in addition to 

 five of "osprey" skins. The Birds-o'-Paradise 

 numbered 4244. There were 131 Impeyan 

 Pheasants, three cases of Emu skin-, 1386 Crowned 

 Pigeons' heads, and again a large collection of 

 Eagle, Vulture and other quill-feathcrs. Among 

 the miscellaneous bird-skins, one firm of auctioneers 

 alone catalogued over twenty thousand Kingfishers. 



ROOKS AND ROOKERIES. 



(From The Spectator, May nth, 1907.) 

 The Council of the Staffordshire Chamber of 

 Agriculture has issued a circular to owners of 

 rookeries in the County suggesting that it will be 

 advisable, in view of the increasing destructiveness 

 of Rooks in farming districts, to take counsel with 

 a view to thinning the Rooks' numbers. It would 

 be a valuable contribution to natural history if the 

 Chamber could obtain from local correspondents 

 definite accounts of the damage done, and the 

 relief, if any, afforded by killing down the birds. 

 There are few ornithological topics which have led 

 to closer debate than the question of the amount 

 of harm done by the rook to sown and ripening 

 crops, compared with the services which he renders 

 to the farmer in the destruction of grubs and insects 



injurious to plant life Although since 



Audubon's day the Rook has never wanted defenders 

 against the accusing ignorance of farmers, he has 

 never been championed with more amazing industry 

 than by the German doctor who made known the 

 results of his experiments only last year. Dr. 

 Hollrungin the course of his investigations actually 

 examined the crops of four thousand and thirty 

 rooks, surely an appalling achievement ! How- 

 ever, he certainly obtained some very remarkable 

 figures. He counted every grain and every insect 

 in the crop, and found that while the four thousand 

 crops contained as many as 42,239 sprouted and 

 unsprouted grains of corn and 587 potatoes, they 

 contained also 43,997 insects injurious to agriculture. 

 Of these 43,997 insects, no fewer than 4,486 were 

 cockchafer-beetles and grubs, and 3,896 were click- 

 beetles and their larvae, wire-worms. He then 

 proceeded to calculate the damage which would 

 have been done to crops by the cockchafer alone. 

 If half the 2222 cockenafer beetles were females 

 they would lav 60 to 70 egsjs apiece— total 66,660 

 eggs. If half of these hatched, there would be 

 33-33° gJ'ubs. Now a grub spends three years in 

 the soil, and destroys, perhaps, ten cereal plants, 

 at a low estimate per annum. 



Imagine, however, that halt" the grubs get killed 

 somehow during the second year, and an easy 

 calculation shows that before the 33,330 eggs had 

 matured into beetles they would have destroyed 

 between a half and three-quarters of a million 

 plants. Contrast these numbers with the numbers 

 of the grains of corn eaten by the insatiate four 

 thousand, and remember that you have confined 

 yourself to the cockchafers (inly, and the conclusion 

 is clear. You are left to imagine the gnawing 



