Opinions may vary as to the desirability of caged and plucked Egrets in native 

 India . There can be little difference of opinion regarding the smuggling of goods by 

 false declarations. What respect does this create for business honesty ? 



Victims of the Plume- Hunter. 



No statements as to farmed birds can cover the dead hosts of millions of birds, 

 representing all the most exquisite in creation, which are the victims of the plume- 

 hunter. The trade want, they tell us, only about forty kinds of birds ; but these 

 must be the most beautifully plumaged of the world and must be killed in countless 

 thousands.* In three sales of a single year the skins of some 41 ,000 Humming-Birds 

 and of over 20,000 Birds of Paradise have been catalogued ; at single sales 10,700 

 Crowned Pigeons (of New Guinea), 18,000 Sooty Terns, 162,750 Kingfishers of one 

 Asian species. This too is ancient history, things have changed since 1911 and 1913 ? 

 Yes ; since the publication of such facts aroused hot indignation that threatened trade 

 profits, figures have been suppressed, and sale catalogues refused tc enquirers. 



It is the old story ; this story of change and conversion. 



" The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; 

 The devil grew well, the devil a monk was he." 



Whenever legislation has seemed at hand the feather-trade has been very sick indeed. 



The Honourable Traditions of British Trade. 



It is gratifying to know that in the United States the New York Millinery 

 Chamber of Commerce is honourably supporting the tariff laws, and is protesting 

 against the sale of banned and seized plumage. And it is perfectly safe to conclude 

 that, were this hateful dealing in dead birds stopped, the British millinery trade, 

 wholesale and retail, would breathe freely and thankfully as at the removal of a 

 sickening burden — a riddance enabling it to stand upright as behoves the honourable 

 traditions of British trade, and once more to look the world honestly in the face. 



L. Gardiner, Secretary. 

 The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 



23, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W.1. 



*The Editor of " The MiUinery Trades Journal " says in the same issue that "the comparatively few 

 species and varieties required for millinery are actually bred for the purpose." This is absolutely 

 untrue. Of no other wild bird than the Egret and just possibly, in some districts, the Rhea, can it 

 be even alleged that it is bred for millinery purposes. 



Vacher & Sons, Ltd., Westminster House, S.W.1. — 90547. 



