26 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



usr The Story of Bird Protection. 



UcT 



PART III 



It would be difficult to say when the 

 feeling against the use of wild-bird plumage 

 for millinery was first manifested. The 

 fashion itself, as we know it to-day, is an 

 eruption of the modern dress-fever, and was 

 conspicuously manifested in the mid- 

 Victorian era of veneer and gaudiness. The 

 earliest protest that took the ears of the 

 world was that made by Professor Newton 

 at the British Association at Norwich in 

 1868. It is an interesting sequel to his 

 passionate denunciation of the feathered 

 woman on that occasion, that in one of the 

 rooms of the British Association at its meet- 

 ing at Sheffield this year (1910) were exhibited 

 the photographic enlargements, lent by the 

 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 

 depicting " The Story of the Egret." His 

 words have become, and deservedly become, 

 historic ; they are equally applicable to 

 KittiAvakes' wings of 1868 and the " Osprey " 

 of 1910 : 



" Fair and innocent as the snowy plumes may 

 appear in a lady's hat, I must tell the wearer the 

 truth — she bears the murderer's brand on her 

 forehead." 



Historic also is Miss Lydia Becker's 



defence, her earnest assurance that women 



needed only to know of the carnage and the 



cruelty involved in order to cease from 



supporting such a mode. Unfortunately 



Miss Becker, like many of her followers of the 



present day, understood only a minority of 



her sex. Professor Newton went straight 



to the root of the matter : 



" That a stop should be put to this wanton and 

 atrocious destruction of a species, aggravated as it 

 is by circumstances of peculiar cruelty, I think none 

 of my audience will deny. . . . The only question 

 is how it should be done. ... It seems to me that 

 legislative interference is absolutely required, for 

 we can hope to excite the interest of Parhament 



in the matter sooner than we can that of the nation 

 at large." 



At that time the birds especially threatened 

 were the Kittiwake gulls on the British 

 coast ; they were killed at the breeding-time, 

 as Egrets and other birds are killed to-day, 

 not only because the feathers, as with all 

 wild birds are brightest at the mating season, 

 but because it is easier to approach and 

 destroy birds when they are on and about 

 their nests. It was to these birds of our 

 own shore that Professor Newton alluded ; 

 there was no apparent danger of the extirpa- 

 tion of Kittiwakes throughout the world. 

 But the defence was not brought forward 

 that therefore the destruction did not matter 

 — that when the birds became very scarce it 

 would not pay to kill them and that accord- 

 ingly they might as well be reduced to that 

 status in the interests of trade. This pitiful Hne 

 of argument was reserved for the present day. 



In 1869 the Act for the Preservation of 

 Seabirds put a check on the destruction of 

 British Gulls and produced a temporary lull 

 in the fashion for white wings. To-day the 

 skins and wings of seabirds and wild-fowl 

 that are poured into the plume-market come 

 for the most part from other lands — further 

 Russia or islets in the Pacific ; and ladies 

 who are at all troubled about the brand of 

 Cain are assured that there is "no extermina- 

 tion " and " no cruelty." Wlien the business 

 went on round the English coast, Mr. Howard 

 Saunders, no sentimental "faddist," described 

 how he watched the plume-hunters at work 

 shooting the birds, " often cutting their 

 wings off and fiinging the victims into the 

 sea, to struggle with feet and head until 

 death slowly came to their relief " ; and 



