70 



BIED NOTES AND NEWS. 



UcT 



The PIume^Trade. 



UcT 



The Commonwealth of Australia has taken 

 a further step for protecting the bird-life 

 of that great Colon}-. The Minister of 

 Customs has issued (April, 1911) a proclama- 

 tion prohibiting the exportation of the 

 following birds, their skins, plumage, or eggs, 

 save where it is proved that they are required 

 for scientific purposes :— 



Emus, Terns and Gulls, Egrets, Herons and Bit- 

 terns, Lorikeets, Cockatoos, Parrots, Dollar or 

 R.oller Birds, Kingfishers, Bee-eaters, Cuckoos, Lyi'e 

 Birds, Pittas, Robins, Ground Thrushes and Chats, 

 Wrens, Shrike -Tits, Thickheads and Shrike-Robins, 

 Sun Birds, Bower Birds, Rifle Birds, Grebes, 

 Albatrosses, Finches, Orioles, and Shining Starlings. 



A second proclamation ]:)laces a like prohibition 

 upon the importation of the plumage and skins of 

 Kingfishers, the Macaws, any Parrot of the genus 

 Sittace or Macrocerus, the Stork tribe, the Heron 

 tribe, the Ibises and Sjioonbills, the Todies, the 

 Cock of the Rock, the Quezal or resplendent Trogon, 

 the Birds of Paradise, tlie Humming Birds, the 

 Monal, any one of the several si>ecies of Asiatic 

 Pheasants of genus Lophophorus — as the Impeyan 

 Pheasant, the Argus — any one of the several species 

 of Asiatic Plieasants of genus Argusiamis (Argus 

 Pheasant), the Crowned Pigeon — any of the several 

 species of large Crested-Pigeons of genus Goura 

 inhabiting New Guinea and the adjacent islands, 

 tlie Rheas and the Owls. 



Until the British Parliament passes a law 

 to prohibit the importation of Plumage, the 

 protection of birds in the Colonies is hedged 

 in by almost insurmountable difficulties, for 

 as long as London provides a lucrative 

 mart for feathers, smuggUng will be rife. 

 Importers themselves have declared that 

 they cannot prevent such smugghng 

 ^vhile the facilities for sale remain. " The 

 trade," saj^s their spokesman in his official 

 defence of the business, " cannot control 

 consignments to a free market." 



The Report of the Colonial Office Com- 

 mittee, appointed to investigate the facts 

 with reference to the birds of the British 

 Empire, is looked for with confidence by 

 Bird Protectors, and it is hoped that the 

 Government will then introduce a Bill of 



their own, or give facilities for the passing 

 of Lord Avebury's Bill to proliibit the 

 importation of plumage. Ihis Committee 

 has been dealing solely with the birds of 

 Greater Britain, but while these are being 

 destroyed in face of drastic colonial laws, 

 how much more is protection needed for the 

 preservation of the beautiful birds of many 

 lands where laws are non-existent, and where 

 the enforcement of them would be impossible 

 did they exist ! 



The latest achievement of the trade has 

 been the exhibition in a West-end shop in 

 London of women's shoes made entirely 

 of the feathers of Humming Birds, with the 

 prominent announcement that these are the 

 " most expensive " shoes ever made — the 

 blatant vulgarity of this recommendation 

 bemg only equalled by the deplorably bad 

 taste of the exhibit itself. It is interesting 

 to look at this much-advertised novelty 

 in the hght of the trade's recent statements. 

 Humming Birds, Mr. Downham has informed 

 us, have been unsaleable — unused — a drug in 

 the market — for twenty years. 



An anonymous circular - letter, headed 

 " Audi alteram partem — The Plumage Bill," 

 has lately been circulated, the plea coming 

 characteristically from a spokesman who 

 hides under a pseudonym, and ventures to 

 give neither place nor date. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the document consists 

 of a repetition of the old falsehoods, seasoned 

 with abuse of the " sickly sentimentality " 

 which can regard anything except from the 

 standpoint of its money value. Anyone 

 who wishes for a fuU answer to these and 

 similar statements, will find it in the R.S.P.B. 

 pamphlet " Feathers and Facts," and in 

 Mr. Buckland's pamphlet " Pros and Cons." 



