Bird Notes and News 



benefit the national exchequer by increasing the turn- 

 over of a legitimate industry. Already there is a con- 

 siderable and growing industry engaged in the manu- 

 facture of artificial flowers and other millinery decora- 

 tions ; this would be advanced by the passage of the 

 Bill. ... A recent number of the Drapers' 

 Organiser, a trade journal circulating very widely 

 among the high-class buyers of drapery and allied 

 goods, both in this country and overseas, recently 

 published a leader supporting the Bill, and no criticism 

 whatever has been received by the editor from the 

 trade. The only comment comes from a dealer in 

 ostrich feathers in support of the editorial contention. 



Mr. Julian S. Huxley on Bird Farming 

 (April 1st). 



Many supporters of a drastic BiU believe in the 

 possibility of plumage farms, but unfortunately, after 

 the evidence adduced by the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds, they cannot, in spite of the 

 assertions of the plumage trade, believe in their 

 present reality. It might be possible to frame an 

 amendment to the Bill * wliich should grant licences 

 to firms to import plumes, provided that they could 

 show that these had all been obtained humanely on 

 real farms, and that they would submit to stringent 

 inspection. This would prove an incentive to establish 

 farms — an incentive which is now wholly lacking, 

 when a few men, with guns and without scruples, 

 can cater for trade needs. If we do not pass a drastic 

 Bill, the present destruction will continue. . . . 

 If bird-farming can be made practicable, let us make 

 it so. But first let us make sure that the abominable 

 cruelties and the wanton disregard of the future which 

 leads to extermination, either entire or over large 

 territories, are put a stop to for good before we are 

 willing to start on a new line. Let us make sure of 

 protection before we start cultivation. 



On March 26th the Times, in a trenchant 

 leading article, summed up the evidence for 

 and against the Bill fairly and squarely, and 

 gave as its verdict, that if one or other of the 

 Bills now introduced does not in this Session 

 become law, " world-wide discredit will be 

 cast on the British Nation "... "In this 

 toleration of a wasteful, cruel, and barbaric 

 industry we have too long lagged behind both 

 the United States and our own Dominions." 



" FARMS " FOR PLUMAGE. 



The pleas for their trade put forward by 

 the plumage dealers centre at present in the 

 "Egret Farm." The old story of "artificial 

 feathers " was of service only for the deception 

 of lady purchasers, and is necessarily rather an 

 argument against than for the need of imported 

 plumage. " Moulted feathers," as a remunera- 

 tive product of the immeasurable wild, have 

 also had their day, and have to be confined 

 more or less to the limited area of a " farm," 

 where the birds conveniently deposit them. 



* Clause 2 sufficiently provides for this. 



Of these farms there are two varieties, both 

 interesting. 



The first of these is, for the present, situated 

 in Venezuela, where it is claimed that laws 

 exist for the strict protection of birds and that 

 owners of garceros guard their nesting-birds 

 and carefully sweep up the old discarded 

 feathers, all of which, it would seem, con- 

 veniently fall from the moulting birds before 

 they migrate from their breeding quarters. 

 This stringent " protection " was referred to 

 in 1908, but entirely discredited in official 

 reports published by the R.S.P.B. It was 

 revived in 1914, and again disproved. In 1917 

 the word went forth that the destruction of 

 Egrets really had been prohibited this time, 

 and that feathers might only be collected from 

 July to November (which includes the breeding 

 as well as the moulting season). What has 

 never been shown are the exact provisions of 

 this order, and the prospects of enforcing any 

 such law in a wild country the size of Egypt, 

 while only by killing can plumes of good quality 

 be obtained. The clue to actual facts is 

 seemingly contained in Mr. Eugene Andre's 

 allusion in " A Naturalist in Guiana " (1914), 

 where he speaks of the money made by owners 

 of garceros on the Orinoco through hiring out 

 the privilege of shooting the birds in nesting- 

 time, and the " ever diminishing number of 

 the birds." As Mr. Pycraft has pointed out 

 in the Times, this " farm " is not a reserve 

 for the benefit of the birds, but a preserve for 

 the benefit of the owner. 



The second species of farm is located in Sind. 

 An account of it was given, as a plea for the 

 trade, by Mr. George Birch, Assistant-Com- 

 missioner of Sind, in the Journal of the Bombay 

 Natural History Society in 1914. These farms 

 were described as large poultry-runs, 20 ft. 

 by 8 ft., in each of which some 50 or 60 birds 

 were confined in what the writer was pleased 

 to call " a state of freedom," and where they 

 were stated to lay eggs four or five times a 

 year and to produce the nuptial plumage four 

 times — statements the mere ornithologist 

 would be apt to define as absolute nonsense. 

 The plumes, it was added, were sold to 

 merchants and smuggled to the European 

 market. From the rejoinder of Major Lindsay 

 Smith, M.B.O.U., in the same publication, the 

 probable facts are that any such birds are 

 kept as decoys for attracting others or caught 

 in the winter for any plumes they may grow 

 at the following breeding-season. His state- 

 ments, as well as a conviction reported in the 



