28 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



give their names (and fully answered by the 

 R.S.P.B. at the time), re-appeared recently 

 as a newspaper article ; but it is interesting 

 to note that in this case Mr. Leon Laglaize 

 omits his former assertion that the best 

 plumes are obtained from the lining of nests. 

 That part of the story has presumably been 

 recognized as injudicious, seeing that Herons 

 and Egrets have not hitherto been known to 

 line their nests with feathers of any des- 

 cription. 



Another statement is jDublished in the 

 Paris notes of a women's paper, and else- 

 where, in the form of an "indignant protest" 

 from " the President of Union of French 

 Feather Manufacturers." No doubt such a 

 union exists, although as there are no such 

 things as manufactured feathers, its title has 

 an odd sound. " It is not true," says this 

 individual, " that birds are massacred to 

 suit the demands of fashion. It is an 

 abominable legend." Seeing that the mas- 

 sacre has become so enormous and so 

 notorious a scandal as to demand a House 

 of Lords enquiry, a strong resolution from 

 the International Ornithological Conference, 

 and a Government Committee, this assertion 

 can only be admired for its size and boldness. 



Somewhat less in dimensions is the as- 

 severation of Mr. Hamel Smith in the Daily 

 Graphic of September 2nd (and perhaps else- 

 where) that he " has never heard of such a 

 thing" with regard to "the full tropics," as 

 Egret feathers being obtained " by taking 

 the mother birds and leaving the young to 

 starve," and that all his travelling friends 

 associated with " the full tropics " maintain 

 also that there is no truth in the statement. 

 " If such a case occurred at all, it was in 

 Australia, but then it lias to be proved that 

 a collector for the millinery trade was the 

 cause of the trouble." Of course, this is 

 absolute nonsense. If Mr. Hamel Smith 



knoAvs anything at all about the matter — 

 and as he has been in the trade, he probably 

 does— he knows that the disgraceful case of 

 the Herons of Florida (the remnant of which 

 has now to be guarded from the plume- 

 hunters by armed wardens who carry their 

 life in their hands) has been paralleled, in 

 its essential fact of the wholesale slaughter 

 of parent birds, in India, in China, in 

 Argentina, in British Guiana. The words 

 of Professor Newton's letter to the Times 

 (February 25th, 1899) are as true to-day as 

 when they were written : — 



"It is a fact known to everyone who will take 

 the trouble to inquire, that all these Egrets are shot 

 down at their breeding places while they are building 

 their nests or rearing their young, and that if so 

 be that the latter are hatched, they die of hunger 

 on their parents' death, the breeding-places being 

 absolutely devastated by the " plume hunters." 

 The personal experience on this point of Mr. W. E. D. 

 Scott, a competent and unimpassioned witness, has 

 never been, and cannot be, refuted as regards the 

 Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America, where 

 the settlements of the birds are all but extinguished ; 

 but the same thing goes on all over the world wherever 

 Egrets are found in numbers sufficient to make their 

 destruction a profitable enterprise." 



The truth is so familiar that it can hardly be 

 repeated without an apology to readers of 

 Bird Notes and News ; but it is just as well 

 to bear in mind and to contrast the state- 

 ments of scientific men and those of the 

 plume-trade. It is also worth remembering 

 that the former were left almost unheeded 

 so long as trade profits were in no immediate 

 danger ; an occasional rehabilitation of the 

 " artificial osprey " story sufficed. 



The reference to Australia is amusing as it 

 is so obviously prompted by the exhibition 

 of the Society's photograj)lis (taken in New 

 South Wales by Mr. Mattingley) showing 

 " The Story of the Egret." Mr. Mattingley's 

 letterpress in the Emu is apparently 

 overlooked. 



Mr. Hamel Smith goes on to repeat the 

 suggestion he made some years ago, 

 when endeavouring to get the Indian 

 Edict forbidding the export of plumage 



