Bird Notes and News 



be prostituted to greed, nor left at the mercy 

 of trade. 



Story op the Crusade 



From the first stages of the feather-trade, 

 its operations were combated by men of 

 science and humanity. Morris and Newton 

 were among the first in England, W. E. D. 

 Scott, Sennett, and Dutcher in the United 

 States. Then came the formation of the 

 Audubon Societies of America, the Society 

 for the Protection of Birds in England, both 

 with the same starting-point of opposition to 

 the kiUing of birds for miUinery. Govern- 

 ments, as is their wont, waited to see how big 

 the evil would become, before dealing with it. 

 The discontinuance of " osprey " plumes in 

 the Army, at the instance of Lord Wolseley, 

 came in 1889, the investigation and Ordinance 

 in British India in 1902, the support of Queen 

 Alexandra to the crusade in 1906. The first 

 Plumage Bill in the English Parliament was 

 that drafted by Mr. Montagu Sharpe (now 

 Sir Montagu Sharpe, K.C.), Chairman of the 

 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and 

 introduced by Lord Avebury in 1908, followed 

 by the appointment of a Select Committee. 

 It was passed by the Lords, too late for its 

 consideration in the Commons, where it was 

 introduced by Lord Robert Cecil. During 

 the next five or six years Bills were brought 

 in by Sir William Anson, Mr. Ramsay Mac- 

 donald, Mr. Percy Alden, and Colonel Page- 

 Croft. 



When the Government, through Mr. Hob- 

 house, brought in a measure in 1914 the ulti- 

 mate end was in view, but the trade and the 

 Germans together succeeded in delaying matters 

 for yet another seven years ; and it is thanks 

 to private members and private societies that 

 the Act is at last on the Statute-book, though it 

 has had the support of the Board of Trade. 



The New Act 



The Act of 1921 is not so stringent and simple 

 as the BiU of 1908, for it places no embargo on 

 the sale of plimiage, thereby laying a heavy 

 task on the Customs officers. Moreover, it is 

 hampered by a clause, known as the " agreed " 

 clause, which gives permission to the trade (or 

 other persons) to appeal to an Advisory Com- 

 mittee set up by the Board of Trade, for the 

 addition of birds whose plumage may be im- 

 ported. The committee includes three feather- 



trade experts, two scientific experts, and four 

 other persons, who may or may not, at the 

 option of the Board, be bird protectors. There 

 is no doubt that the trade, which, on its own 

 statements, let the Bill through because of this 

 claiise and crowed very considerably over what 

 it deemed its victory, expected to turn the Act 

 upside down by its means. The Schedule to the 

 BiU named only two birds as exceptions to 

 the rule — the African ostrich and the eider-duck. 

 In more or less private conclaves with scientific 

 bodies and persons, representatives of the 

 trade made various propositions for altering 

 this. They proposed, for instance, to place all 

 the birds they want on the schedule, make the 

 Bill a permissive instead of a repressive one, 

 and leave it to a Committee to remove those 

 which it was necessary, or " agreed," to pro- 

 tect. They also presented a long list of birds 

 " essential to the plumage trade," which they 

 suggested might be placed on the schedule, with 

 the naive premiss that as these had been regu- 

 larly imported in large quantities they could 

 not be rare, and therefore need not be protected. 



The Egret Safe 



It has yet to be seen what additions (if any) 

 to the schedule will be made by the Board of 

 Trade on the recommendation of the Advisory 

 Committee when the Act comes into force. But 

 the trade have already rushed into print to cry 

 out that things are not going as they had antici- 

 pated ; that they agreed on the supposition that 

 only rare birds, which they do not want, and 

 feathers obtained with cruelty (the existence 

 of which they deny) were really and truly to be 

 inhibited. " Moulted " and " farmed " feathers, 

 they argue, should thus come in freely, together 

 with birds of any abundant species. This would 

 suit them nicely. And now, behold, the Com- 

 mittee and the legal advisers of the Board have 

 construed the Act to mean what it says. It 

 says nothing about " extermination " or 

 " cruelty," or about " feathers " from this 

 place or that. The word used is " bird," and 

 it is birds, not selected plumages, which may 

 be added to the schedule. The presumption is, 

 therefore, that the egret is saved ; that wild 

 birds' plumage wiU now cease to come into the 

 London market, save by smuggling ; and that, 

 when accumulated stores are exhausted, women 

 wiU no longer be able to adorn themselves with 

 " murderous millinery " otherwise than by 

 saving up their out-of-date decorations or by 

 personally importing the banned feathers on 

 their hats. 



