40 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



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ucr Notes. 



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/ST 



THE PLUMAGE IMPORTATION 

 BILL. 



For those who have not had time to read 

 through the forty-seven page Blue Book, 

 or to collate the evidence relating to the 

 various points, a scries of extracts are given 

 in this number of Bird Notes and News 

 from the statements made before the Select 

 Committee both for and against the Plumage 

 Bill. The question naturally divides itself 

 into two sections — that of the birds, and 

 that of British trade and labour. On the 

 first of these, the trade statements can hardly 

 be taken as of serious value. They consist 

 of flat contradictions, wholly unsupported 

 by evidence, of all that has been said on the 

 subject for years past by travelled naturalists 

 and scientific writers, who have no personal 

 end to serve. The assertions of one witness, 

 for instance, as to the Egrets of Florida, 

 will afford grim entertainment to Audubon 

 Societies who are employing armed wardens 

 to protect the remaining birds against the 

 plume-hunter. Those as to Venezuela Mill 

 equally amaze anyone who possesses a 

 tittle of geographical knowledge of the 

 country, or who remembers the protest made 

 not many years ago, even in a Government 

 Blue Book, against the terrific slaughter of 

 Egrets in that country. The trade repre- 

 sentatives, in fact, protested too much. 



The legend of " artificial " and " imita- 

 tion " plumage has received its death-blow 

 from its inventors, for the trade were 

 emphatic that poultry feathers and the like 

 bear no resemblance whatever to the im- 

 ported wild-bird plumes — they are " as 

 ginger-beer to champagne," " dowdy," im- 

 possible. And though one speaker clung 

 desperately to the old tale of " horsehair " 

 osprcys, he did not put in a specimen of 



this elusive article. There was indeed a 

 stand taken on the theory of " moulted " 

 plumes — the most incredible story of all — 

 the story that plume-hunters, instead of 

 shooting out a " rookery " of birds and 

 taking the patch of skin bearing the nuptial 

 plume, patiently stalk the jungles and 

 swamps to collect one by one the widely 

 scattered moulted and draggled feathers, 

 and that the trade carefully clean and 

 prepare this unpromising material. Here, 

 again, the trade asked too much of their 

 hearers. 



The relation of the Bill to trade comes 

 more within the province of trade witnesses, 

 and readers will sympathise with Messrs. 

 S. H. Weiler, Emil Mosbacher, Eugene 

 Hanneguy, and Sciama & Co., in their anxiety 

 as to British interests. If, however, such an 

 Act was not likely to have far-reaching effects 

 in protecting birds and demoralising the 

 whole business, it may be at least doubted 

 whether it would excite so bitter an 

 antagonism in these English patriots with 

 the very un-English names. Apart from 

 jDOSsible Continental or international move- 

 ments, the result in strengthening bird 

 protection and export laws in our own Colonies 

 is a strong fact to be set against the trade 

 declaration that not a bird will be saved. 

 The evidence of smuggling in India is par- 

 ticularly interesting reading. 



The facts of the labour question, disen- 

 tangled from irrelevant and contradictory 

 statements, appear to be these. London is 

 the great receiving port for plumes from 

 abroad, and on this fact the supporters of 

 the Bill base their contention that an English 

 law is required to save the birds from ex- 

 termination. Of the imported feathers, 80 



