Bird Notes and News 



offered some five thousand ounces of 

 " osprey " feathers (it is computed that 

 the nuptial feathers of six Egrets, or 

 Herons, are required to yield one ounce) ; 

 nearly four thousand Birds of Paradise, 

 and 14,000 Humming-Birds, in addition to 

 the wings and quills of great quantities 

 of wild Duck. It is to be hoped that any 

 International Committee will quicken its 

 dehberations and come to action before 

 the earth is beggared beyond repair ; and 

 that our ingenious neighbours across 

 the Channel will not be driven to provide 

 their substitutes simply because none of 

 the wild birds are left to kill. 



THE EGRETS OF FLORIDA. 



The following letter is especially inter- 

 esting as the first-hand experience of an 

 Enghsh traveller in the country where 

 the Wliite Egrets and other Herons were 

 most common, and were earhest " wiped 

 out " by the plume-hunters. It is from 

 an Hon. Local Secretary of the R.S.P.B., 

 and bears the date February 21st, 1912 : — 



" We have just returned from a long tour 

 in America, three weeks of which we spent 

 in Florida. WTiile there we made many 

 enquiries about the \'\Tiite Heron, and always 

 heard the same tale — that it is nearly extinct. 



" For a long distance the railway runs 

 along the east shore, close to the shallow 

 inland sea, and many water-birds were to 

 be seen, including the Blue Heron, whose 

 feathers are of no market value. 



" Birds are protected by State law, but 

 this is very difficult to carry out properly, 

 owing to the large tracts of land which are 

 either unpopulated or sparsely so. Towards 

 the southern end of Florida there is a large 

 piece of marsh-land, called the " Everglades," 

 which is but little drained, and a great 

 portion of which is unexplored. In this wild 

 region the Indians of that part, who refused 

 to live under the Reservation sj^stem, have 

 made their homes, and so have the few White 

 Herons which remain. 



" Unfortunately the Indians have dis- 

 covered that the feathers of the White Heron 

 fetch money, and it is they who are finishing 



the work of extinction begun by the white 

 man. It is well known in Miami that certain 

 traders buy the aigrettes, but it is very 

 difficult to bring the matter home, owing 

 to the secrecy with which it is done. 



" We made a day's excursion up the 

 Miami River into the Everglades, and came 

 across several boats of Indians, who were 

 returning from one of their periodical visits 

 to the to^^^l. We saw numbers of birds, 

 including Blue Herons, but never a white 

 one." 



So much for the Trade story, that the 

 birds of Florida have been exterminated by 

 the growth of population and of towns ! 



In Bird-Lore (New York, U.S.A.), 

 February, 1912, Mr. Gilbert Pearson 

 writes : — 



" Despite all our efforts, the birds have 

 continually become scarcer, and in fact so 

 depleted are their numbers to-day that we 

 did not know of over fifteen colonies in the 

 United States in the summer of 1911. . . 

 The Audubon workers, by constant agitation 

 and an immense amount of labour, have 

 succeeded in securing the passage of laws 

 which prohibit the sale of these birds in the 

 States of New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, 

 Ohio, Missouri, Massachusetts, Oregon, and 

 California. This is only a beginning of the 

 line for suppressing the traffic in their 

 feathers. . . 



" As the birds have become exterminated 

 in the United States, the millinery feather- 

 agents have turned their attention to the 

 Tierra caliente of Mexico and the rivers of 

 South America. Here the feather- gatherers 

 are to be found every year. . . It is custom- 

 ary to wait until the eggs are hatched, for 

 then the old birds, responding to the cries 

 of their young, are loath to leave the neigh- 

 bourhood, and readily fall a prey to the 

 gunners. The millinery dealers, in their 

 efforts to defend this nefarious traffic, seek 

 to mislead the pubhc by statements that 

 aigrettes are gathered from the ground 

 underneath the nests. Everj' ornithologist, 

 or other person who has had experience of 

 Heron rookeries, knows the falsity of this 

 statement. At least twenty weU-knoAvn 

 naturalists have filed affidavits to this effect 

 with, the officers of the National Association 

 of Audubon Societies." 



