42 Occasional J^'otes. 



fishers, 20,000 Aigrettes, and thousands o£ other gorgeous 

 southern birds of different kinds, as well as Doves and even 

 Sparrows. France receives every year from America, 

 Tonkin, and India millions of birds, which are exchanged 

 for millions of pounds. The number of small birds annually 

 imported into England and France may be computed at 

 1,500,000. Germany exports yearly twenty million feathers, 

 which are worked up in England into hat-trimmings. In 

 London there are held every month sales of birds' skins and 

 feathers, India alone supplying some thirty millions of 

 feathers. The South American Kepublics have awakened to 

 the danger of the extermination of their monumental species 

 of birds, and have passed laws regulating their slaughter. 

 A league has been formed in America, the members of which 

 forswear the wearing of feathers ; as the demand creates the 

 supply, it is to be hoped more leagues of tliis kind will be 

 formed elsewhere, and that it will some day be considered 

 bad form for a woman to adorn her head-gear or clothing 

 with the bodies and feathers of wild birds. 



IV. The following letter addressed to Haagner may be of 

 interest : — 



Sir,— At a meeting of the B.O.C. on Nov. 21, 1906 (at 

 which I was unable to be present), eggs of Teleplionus 

 australis taken by you were exhibited, and it was staled that 

 Eriksson was the only collector who had previously taken 

 the eggs of this bird. 



It may interest you to know that I have in my collection 



a clutch of three eggs taken on Sefit. 28, 1900, by my brother, 



Captain H. F. N. Jourdain, 1st Connaught Rangers, about 



16 miles east of Pretoria. The nest was built of fine roots 



and placed in the fork of a tree, low down. The three eggs 



are white with irregular purplish-brown streaks and scrawls, 



and more numerous leaden grey underlying streaks and 



spots. The markings are chiefly at the big end and tend to 



form a zone. 



rl9-o X ir. mm. 

 Size \ 20-1 X 16 „ 

 i 19-5 X 16 „ 



