Bird Notes and News 



19 



the male sex to join the Society for the 

 Protection of Birds. I did so hoping that 

 the plumage fashions prevalent even then 

 would be exposed, as they were, in all their 

 cruel thoughtlessness, and that women, in 

 response to the entreaties of those forming 

 the Society, would be persuaded no longer 

 to aid the slaughter and eventual extermina- 

 tion of the most lovely creatures in God's 

 creation. This was many years ago ; how 

 much there is still to do! 



"That the Government's Plumage Bill, 

 politics quite apart, will be passed, and 

 thus follow the excellent lead set by the 

 United States, must be the ardent wish of 

 us all." 



Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt : — 



"Nobody can feel more strongly than I 

 do the abominations connected with the 

 feather trade against which you are pro- 

 testing, nor could any Plumage Bill be too 

 severe to please me. 



"In the whole history of mankind — and 

 Heaven knows it is an ugly record — there 

 is nothing in my view of things to equal 

 the criminality of the destruction which in 

 our own day has befallen whole races of 

 wild animals, especially of birds, at our 

 civilized white hands — nothing so wanton, 

 nothing so irreparable, nothing where the 

 evil wrought has been less mixed with 

 advantage, where the dignity and order and 

 beauty of the world has been more 

 unpardonably wronged. 



" To my mind, the race of birds is, with- 

 out exaggeration, better and happier and 

 wiser and a hundred times more beautiful 

 than that of man, and as such far more 

 worthy to survive in the struggle of life. 

 All the happiness we have in our sordid 

 human lives, birds have more perfectly in 

 theirs ; all the wisdom of domestic cheer- 

 fulness ; all the power of enjoyment without 

 hurry ; all the acceptance of good and evil 

 at the hand of Providence. Nor is it too 

 much, from an aesthetic point of view, to 

 say that, if the whole artistic production 

 of our modern humanity were lumped 

 together, it would not be found to contain 

 so much of beauty as may be seen in the 

 plumage of a single species of the tropic 

 birds we are destroying. What is alsolutely 

 certain is that the whole skill of our 



European scientists, great as it is, could not 

 re-create a single species in its existing 

 beauty, once it is exterminated. Perhaps 

 not God himself could quite do this ; most 

 certainly not Man. 



" My view of what legislation should aim 

 at is that the destruction of these birds, tor 

 the mere whim of slaughter or the gratifica- 

 tion of vanity, ought to be made a criminal 

 offence, punishable by every Government 

 as a kind of piracy committed against the 

 Commonwealth of the World." 



A report of the proceedings will be 

 published in the Society's Annual Report, 

 which will be issued shortly. It is 

 therefore only necessary to allude in 

 brief to the speeches. The principal 

 topic dealt with was the Government 

 Plumage Bill, a resolution in support of 

 which was moved by Mr. Page Croft, M.P., 

 seconded by Sir A. Conan Doyle, sup- 

 ported by the Rev. H. R. Gamble, and 

 carried enthusiastically. The Chairman, 

 in alluding to the same subject, con- 

 gratulated the Society on the remarkable 

 success it had achieved in persuading the 

 Government to adopt what might be 

 termed without exaggeration the Society's 

 Bill. The arguments against that Bill 

 were as inconclusive as anything he had 

 ever heard. His Lordship also alluded 

 to other activities of the R.S.P.B., 

 especially its educational work in the 

 Public Schools and the Elementary 

 Schools, and its endeavours to check 

 the senseless slaughter of rare and in- 

 teresting species of birds in this country. 



Mr. Montagu Sharpe (Chairman of 

 Council) said that the Report indicated 

 satisfactory progress in all branches. 

 The public had confidence in their 

 organization and were every year sup- 

 porting it in greater numbers. He 

 referred in particular to the work carried 

 out by the Watchers Committee, and 

 to the experiment, which had been so 

 far successful, of erecting perches at the 



