BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



ucr usr The Plume Trade, ^r ucr 



From the details of the Plume Sale, held at 

 the London Commercial Sale Rooms on 

 August 4th, 1909, it is clear that the plume- 

 hunters and dealers have no intention of 

 slackening in their work of slaughter, in 

 order to appease the public feeling which is 

 threatening to overwhelm their hateful trade. 

 Rather it would seem that they are making 

 every effort to kill all they can while they 

 may, and to force as much of their wares as 

 possible on the existing market. 



The total quantity of " osprey " feathers 

 catalogued for this sale was over 4000 ounces, 

 representing on the estimate accepted by the 

 trade, the breeding-plumes of over 24,000 

 parent birds. 



The new Ordinance in British New Guinea 

 may be trusted to check the exploitation 

 of the Bird-of-Paradise for the millinery 

 market ; but there has seldom been a larger 

 and more brilliant show of skins than at 

 this sale, for which 5173 were listed. Of 

 Crowned Pigeons, also from New Guinea, 

 there were 4864. Of Impeyan Pheasants, 

 from East India, 467 bundles. Among 

 other feathers and skins shown were 2400 

 "dominoes" — the black and white Sooty 

 Tern of the Pacific— some 2000 White Terns, 

 over 5000 Kingfishers, and 419 skins of the 

 Emu. Another noticeable feature was some 

 60,000 wings of Wild Fowl. 



THE STORT OF THE EGRET. 



The pictures forming the Supplement A 

 the present number of Bird Notes and 

 News, which tell " The Story of the Egret " 

 with an eloquence that needs no words 

 to enforce it, were taken by a scientific 

 ornithologist under somewhat exceptional 

 circumstances. Mr. A. H. E. Mattingley, 

 Honorary Secretary of the Australasian Orni- 

 thologists' Union, visited the Heronries in the 



heart of the Riverina district of New South 

 Wales in order to study the bird-life of the 

 swamps. Various species of Heron breed in 

 this marshland, among them being about 

 150 White Egrets, "the remnant of a once 

 larger colony, which, we were informed, must 

 have totalled originally about 700 birds, but 

 which, owing to the demand for their back 

 plumes for the adornment of ladies' hats, had 

 been decimated by plume-hunters." Mr. 

 Mattingley and his companion secured photo- 

 graphs of nests and eggs. These show clearly 

 that no feathers are used in the construction 

 of the nest. It is sometimes alleged that 

 the Egret plumes are obtained from the 

 nest-lining. Six weeks later he revisited the 

 place in order to obtain one picture only — 

 that of an Egret, or " White Crane," feeding 

 its young. The scenes he came upon and 

 photographed he thus describes in the Emu, 

 the Organ of the Australasian Ornithologists' 

 Union : — 



" When near the place we could see some large 

 patches of white, either floating in the water or 

 reclining on the fallen trees in the vicinity of the 

 Egrets' rookery. This set me speculating as to the 

 cause of this unusual sight. As we drew nearer, 

 what a spectacle met our gaze ! — a sight that made 

 my blood fairly boil with indignation. There, 

 strewn on the floating water- weed, and on adjacent 

 logs, were at least fifty carcases of large White and 

 smaller Plumed Egrets — nearly one-third of the 

 rookery, perhaps more — the birds having been shot 

 off their nests, containing young. What a monu- 

 ment of human callousness ! There were fifty birds 

 ruthlessly destroyed, besides their young (about 

 200) left to die of starvation. This last fact was 

 betokened by at least seventy carcases of the nest- 

 lings, which had become so weak that their legs had 

 refused to support them, and they had fallen from 

 the nests into the water below and been miserably 

 drowned. In the trees above, the remainder of the 

 parentless young ones could be seen staggering in 

 the nests, some of them falling with a splash into 

 the water, while others simply stretched themselves 

 out on the nest and so expired. Others, again, were 

 seen trying in vain to attract the attention of 

 passing Egrets, which were flying with food in their 

 bills to feed their own young; and it was a pitiful 

 sight to see these starvelings, with outstretched 

 necks and gaping bills, imploring the passing birds 

 to feed them. . . In another large tree a photo was 



