BIRDS 



find otherwise kind, loving, gentle, and affectionate 

 women deliberately encouraging the cold - blooded 

 murder of these valuable allies of our race by adorning 

 their headgear with their plumage. 



Any woman wearing this badge of cruelty should 

 be regarded as a pariah, and shunned by all humane 

 people. 



The appalling destruction of insect-eating birds in 

 Jamaica, chiefly to supply the demands of the 

 millinery trade, resulted in such a plague of grass 

 ticks, flies, and mosquitoes, that all breeds of cattle, 

 with the exception of Indian cattle, were exter- 

 minated, and the death-rate amongst other domestic 

 animals and the human population was considerably 

 raised. 



In French West Africa the unrestricted shooting 

 and trapping of the guinea-fowl resulted in epidemics 

 of germ diseases amongst the native tribes, and the 

 destruction of crops by beetles, cut-worms, grubs, and 

 locusts. 



The wholesale destruction of native birds is 

 followed by disaster to man as surely as day follows 

 night. Man idly, wilfully, or ignorantly brings about 

 the cause, and .he suffers the effect to the full. To-day 

 he has men of science who are capable of guiding and 

 teaching him how to avoid most of the set-backs he 

 gets in his journey through life, but he heeds them not. 

 When they cry aloud in protest at his deeds of vandal- 

 ism, he turns a deaf ear ; or when they essay to spread 

 the seed of knowledge in writings, or by means of 

 lectures, those whom they seek to benefit actually put 



23 



