50 



Bird Notes and News 



workers, and is paralysing British looms 

 and British factories which might employ- 

 thousands of hands in the production of 

 beautiful and artistic adornments. As a 

 skilled trade it is one of the worst-paid, 

 the average earnings being about 10s. to 

 15s. a week for ten hours' work a day ; 

 and even at that it is only a seasonal 

 trade giving little employment in winter. 

 Nor can it be called a healthy one : 

 poisonous preparations are used to pre- 

 serve feathers, fluff and steam pervade 

 workrooms. The trade has no place in 

 the Enquiry into work and wages 

 undertaken by the Government in 1906, 

 either because it was considered negU- 

 gible, or because employers did not 

 choose to fill in the schedules. By far 

 the greater portion of the industry is 

 concerned with ostrich feathers ; a few 

 years ago a change of fashion threw the 

 curlers out of work, but Fashion paid not 

 the sHghtest heed to the fact, and the girls 

 betook themselves to other branches of 

 work, just as they would do if debarred 

 from " osprey " mounting. At present 

 the higher class of fancy work is done in 

 France and Germany. 

 -^ 5. British Colonies hare passed laws 

 forbidding the exportation of bird skins, 



but their efforts are balked by smuggling 

 into the free market permitted in London. 

 Much of the plumage imported, however, 

 comes from lands and regions where there 

 is no means of obtaining or enforcing 

 laws and no possible protection for the 

 birds. 



6. Great Britain could support her 

 colonies, and wash her hands wholly of 

 this trade by prohibiting the importation 

 of plumage into this country. The 

 Boards of lYade and of Customs have 

 stated that there would be no difficulty 

 whatever in carrying out such a law. 

 The House of Lords in 1908 declared in 

 favour of it. 



Why should a traffic, wholly destructive 

 and wholly valueless, giving profits to 

 the few at the cost of a gigantic sacrifice 

 of Ufe, of revolting cruelty, and of 

 danger to human beings, be encouraged 

 by the provision of an open market for 

 its wares ? It is defended by none but 

 those directly or indirectly concerned in 

 it. It is denounced by those who, as 

 scientists and humanitarians, have 

 nothing to gain through exposing the 

 methods by which it is maintained. 



For details and figures, readers are referred to 

 " Feathers and Facts " (R.S.P.B., Is.). 



The Plume-Trade. 



Last year the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, in conjunction with 

 the University of Iowa, sent an Expedition 

 to the Laysan Islands to report on the 

 condition of the birds there and on the 

 destruction wrought by plume-hunters. 

 The report has now been pubhshed. 

 These islands, now known as the Hawaiian 

 Islands Reservation, form the largest 

 off^^the United States' fifty Bird Reserva- 

 tions, and were set apart by President 



Roosevelt in 1909. In the same year 

 they were visited by a party of plume- 

 hunters or poachers, but a Revenue cutter 

 went in pursuit and succeeded in arresting 

 twenty-three men, who were in possession 

 of the plumage of more than a quarter 

 of a million of birds. Professor Dill, 

 one of the members of the expedition, 

 writes : — 



" Our first impression of Laysan was that 

 the poachers had stripped the place of bird 



