46 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



Venezuela. The tale was (to quote the 

 R.S.P.B. Report for the year) " completely 

 refuted by well-known and reliable orni- 

 thologists," and the Auk, the organ of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union, published 

 this comment : 



"It is pretty safe to assume, though hard to 

 prove, that such statements as these emanate 

 from an interested source, and are put forth to dull 

 the sense of the public to the real facts of the case. 

 .... 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, as any 

 ornithologist would expect ; and, as ornithologists 

 also know, the reported gathering of shed plumes 

 as a source of millinery supply must in the nature 

 of things be equally imaginary." 



The year 1900, it will be noticed, is one of 

 the years during which the latest exponent 

 of the theory was visiting Venezuela. 



Secondly, in the Blue Book on the Trade 



of Venezuela for 1898, published in 1899, 



Mr. Haggard, H.B.M. Minister in that 



country, draws attention to the figures given 



by the Vice-Consul at the port of Ciudad 



Bolivar, as to " the destruction of birds for 



the supply of ' Aigrettes ' for ladies' hats," 



and characterises them as " really appalling." 



" Mr. de Lemos says that the export reaches 

 this year the total of 2,839 kilos ; that 870 birds 

 have to be killed to produce one kilo of the smaller 

 feathers, and about 215 for one kilo, of the larger. 

 If, therefore, we take the average, the number of 

 birds killed last year was 1,538,738." 



There is no reference to protected areas or 

 moulted plumes ; and though the extract 

 was widely published at the time, no such 

 explanation was offered. 



Even if it were proved — and at present 

 there is no proof — that a small proportion 

 of plumes dropped from the living birds 

 find their way to the millinery market, this 

 would, of course, have no effect on the 

 general question. The way in which the 

 great majority of these plumes are obtained 

 is perfectly well-known ; and anyone 

 acquainted with the nesting-grounds and 

 habits of the birds, and the past records of 

 plume-hunters, will not doubt how they are 

 likely to be obtained in the future. 



Mr. H. E. Dresser (author of The Birds 



of Europe, and an ornithologist of world-wide 

 repute) in commenting on November 16th 

 on the letter emanating from Buenos Ayres, 



says : — 



"All I can say is, that I do not believe the state- 

 ments in it. When in America many years ago I 

 visited large breeding colonies of Egrets, where at 

 least 500 to 1000 pairs were breeding, and certainly 

 when the young were hatched I could not have 

 picked up any cast plumes, and I do not believe 

 that the birds moult till after they have left their 

 breeding haunts. Not very long ago, I visited a 

 breeding colony of about 200 pairs of Lesser Egrets 

 in the Herzegovina, in company with Mr. Othmar 

 Reiser, the chief of the Museum at Sarajevo, and 

 we certainly found no cast plumes, and I was there 

 told that I could not get any plumes except by 

 shooting the old birds, which I would not do. Out 

 of hundreds of Egrets' nests which I have examined 

 I have never found one in which were feathers of 

 the birds themselves amongst the lining, certainly 

 never a single one of the so-called 'osprey' plumes. 



" I never heard of any trade being done in 

 moulted plumes, and do not believe the tale about 

 the Egret colonies being farmed out for cast 

 plumes." 



The subjoined letter has been received by 

 Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant, from Mr. J. Quelch, 

 B.Sc. (Lond.), formerly Curator British 

 Guiana Museum, Adviser to the Government 

 for the granting of licences to kill Wild Birds, 

 and examiner of all collections thus made ; 

 late C.M.Z.S., South America :— 



" My experience, directly as an eye-witness, of 

 the conditions under which osprey plumes are 

 obtained in Tropical America for export, is so 

 different from that of Mr. Laglaize, that it is 

 difficult to know what to think of his statements. 



" During a residence of seventeen years in 

 British Guiana, and with an experience of travel 

 ranging from the Eastern Orinoco to the borders of 

 Surinam, and inland into Brazil and Venezuela, 

 along the eastern upper waters of the Amazon and 

 the Orinoco, I have never known nor heard of any 

 such method of collection as that described by 

 Mr. Laglaize. 



" Until the Government in Demarara put into 

 force the stringent provisions of the Wild Birds 

 Ordinance, a brisk trade was carried on by many 

 people in the export of birds' skins, and largely of 

 osprey plumes. These feathers were obtained by 

 killing the Egrets in the breeding season, and cutting 

 off the skin of the back on which the plumes were 

 borne. These sections, in fact, are those sold in 

 the trade at home, and they are so scarce just at 

 present as to be worth as much as from 3s. 10d. 

 to 4s. each. 



" There can be little or no doubt that all prized 

 osprey plumes are thus obtained, whether the birds 

 are shot with a gun, or with the much more effective 

 small poisoned arrows of the natives, by which the 

 remaining members of the heronry are not scared 

 away by noise : for even if shed or fallen plumes are 



