Bird Notes and News 



99 



1893. Letter in Times from Mr. W. H. 

 Hudson, denouncing the murderous 

 millinery of the day, and Times 

 leader : " How long Avill women 

 tolerate a fashion which involves 

 such wholesale, wanton, and hideous 

 cruelty as this ? " 



1894. Branch of the S.P.B. founded in 

 South Australia. 



Jules Forest protests, as a friend of, 

 and in the interest of, the trade, 

 against the massacre of Egrets in Indo- 

 China and the East, as this must lead 

 to the extinction of the birds (Revue 

 des Sciences Naturelles applique'es). 



1896. Sir William Flower, Director of the 

 British Museum (Natural History), 

 draws attention to the fraud by 

 which the nuptial-feathers of Egret 

 and Heron are being sold as " arti- 

 ficial " ospreys. " Thus one of the 

 most beautiful of birds is being 

 swept off the earth, under circum- 

 stances of peculiar crueltj^, to minister 

 to a passing fashion, bolstered up by 

 a glaring falsehood." 



1899. Order issued for the discontinuance 

 of the wearing of " osprey " plumes 

 by ofl&cers in the British Army, after 

 consideration of statement furnished 

 to Lord Wolseley by the R.S.P.B. 

 Stories of "Egret farms" and "shed 

 plumes " circulated by the trade. 

 "The various reports of Egret farms 

 located in such improbable places as 

 Arizona, New Mexico, Venezuela, etc., 

 have in each case proved upon 

 investigation to be wholly mythical" 

 {The Auk, Jan., 1900). 



Gterman Bund fiir Vogelschutz (Stutt- 

 gart) founded. 



1900. Indian Branch of the Society for 

 the Protection of Birds inaugurated. 

 Circular issued by Indian Government 

 to local Administrations asking for 

 details as to the killing of birds and 

 exportation of plumage. 

 Clause prohibiting the possession or 

 sale of plumage of birds protected 

 in the State, added to the New 

 York game laws. 



1902. Exportation prohibited from British 

 India of all skins and feathers, 

 except Ostrich feathers. 



1903. The "artificial osprey" lie at its 

 height. Purchase of specimens of 

 these in London shops, by the 

 R.S.P.B., at prices from a guinea to 

 3|d., and examination by British 

 Museum experts, showed that one and 

 all were made from the breeding- 

 plumage of Egrets and Herons. 



1906. Mr. H. K. Job describes in " Wild 

 Wings " (New York) the surviving, 

 and protected, Egret colonies of 

 Florida. " This traffic has almost 

 exterminated the two plume-bearing 

 species of \Miite Heron found in the 

 United States. . . . The origin of the 

 trade is ignorance on one side and 

 greed for money on the other, and 

 there is not one true word which can 

 be said in its defence." — Guy Bradley, 

 warden of one of the colonies, 

 murdered. 



Queen Alexandra authorizes the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds 

 to use her name in any way most 

 conducive to the protection of birds, 

 and to make known that H.M. never 

 wore " ospreys " and would do all 

 in her power to discourage the cruelty 

 inseparable from this fashion. 



