6 



Bird Notes and News 



not save the life of a single bird. The trade 

 would be diverted to Paris or Berlin. 

 The figures as to people engaged in the 

 trade were not complete because they did 

 not include the distributing trade. The 

 Bill was founded on secret information, 

 which was entirely inaccurate and mis- 

 leading. The Port of London dues on 

 feathers were £31,400, of which £8,000 

 went in dockers' wages. Questioned by 

 Mr. Page Croft, the speaker admitted that 

 this included Ostrich feathers, but con- 

 tended that they, too, would be shipped 

 to Paris. The enormous bulk of the 

 trade, he asserted, consisted of moulted 

 feathers. Two-thirds of the Egret plumes 

 imported were moulted. (Mr. Alden: 

 What is their value if they are moulted?) 

 Those taken from the bird after it was 

 shot were more valuable, because in many 

 cases the moulted feathers got injured, bu ! ; 

 many of the moulted feathers were in 

 perfect condition — ("No.") The British 

 Minister at Venezuela reported as long ago 

 as the 14th of January, 1909, in a letter 

 addressed to the Royal Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Birds, that 25 per cent, of the 

 plumes that came to this country were 

 moulted plumes. 



Mr. Hobhouse, interposing, said that if 

 the hon. gentleman looked at a very 

 interesting and eloquent article in the 

 Fortnightly Review for March, he 

 would see the actual words of the British 

 Minister, and would find that they bore no 

 relation to the transcript quoted by the 

 Chamber of Commerce. 



[The actual words, quoted later by Mr. 

 Page Croft, are as follows: — 



From the evidence before me I have no manner 

 of doubt that the vast majority of the Egret 

 plumes exported to Europe are obtained by the 

 slaughter of the birds during or about the breeding 

 season, and that no effective regulations exist or, 



indeed, owing to local conditions, can exist for the 

 control of this slaughter."] 



Mr. Denniss proceeded to contend that the 

 moulted plumes were carefully collected 

 by the people who kept these Heronries in 

 Venezuela, and who gave shelter and pro- 

 tection to hundreds and thousands of the 

 birds. The natives could not be prevented 

 from shooting the birds for food, or for 

 the aigrette, and the Bill would do nothing 

 to stop it. Green Parrots were killed just 

 the same in India because of the damage 

 they did to crops, but as the feathers might 

 not be exported, they were waste products 

 of nature. Venezuela passed in 1910 a law 

 to protect all the birds needing to be pro- 

 tected — (Mr. Hobhouse : I think it only 

 refers to two provinces). That might be, 

 but two provinces might cover a consider- 

 able area. Persons were licensed, reared the 

 birds, killed them, and exported them and 

 their feathers. He always thought that 

 animals and birds were made for the use of 

 man, and 98 per cent, of these birds were in 

 the tropics, where nobody but the travellers 

 ever saw them. It was the collector who 

 killed the rare birds, the trade demand being 

 only for an abundant and continual supply 

 year after year. Mr. Denniss concluded by 

 referring to the Committee for the 

 Economic Preservation of Birds, and the 

 manner in which it proposed to control 

 the trade in fancy feathers, and urged that 

 this body and the Government should co- 

 operate, instead of interfering with the 

 trade for sentimental reasons based on 

 improper evidence. The figures as to the 

 workers might be correct, but he did not 

 think they were — (Mr. Hobhouse : They were 

 prepared by the Board of Trade with the 

 assistance of the trade itself). The traders 

 refused to give accurate figures. After all, 

 the lives and sustenance of human beings 



