8 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



My island seems to be in the direct line of flight of almost all the birds; 

 all the species of small birds seem to take a look in, coming in the spring 

 and going in the fall; all kinds of flycatchers, etc., shore-birds, geese, brant 

 and coot fly directly over the house. 



Thursday, November 19th, 1914, heavy northeast and southeast gale with 

 continuous rain; the largest flight of brant for years went by, literally thous- 

 ands all day, also a few hundred geese. There were 75 geese bedded in the 

 shelter of White Head. 



The tree swallows and young entirely disappeared by the 5th of August, 

 but in October, from the 1st to the 20th, they would arrive in the morning in 

 a cloud and hover around my bird-boxes, literally hundreds of them. 



AS ENGLAND SEES IT 



The plume trade dies hard. It is harassed and curtailed by the forces 

 of conservation and decency, yet eternal vigilance is still the price c/f 

 liberty from it. It masks itself in many ways, and still works on. Bird 

 Notes and News, the quarterly of the Royal Society for the Protection of 

 Birds, which has a wide outlook upon the bird-protection methods the 

 world over, says: 



"Pennsylvania has stepped into the lead among all the States in the 

 protection of birds. A recent change of the laws, says the National Humane 

 Review, now makes it a crime to sell feathers of any wild birds whatso- 

 ever, without the permission of the President of the Board of Game Com- 

 missioners of Pennsylvania. Such permission will not be granted except 

 in instances where the State itself will be benefited, as in sales to public 

 museums or for educational purposes. 



"Under the former law, the President of the Board of Game Commis- 

 sioners had the right to permit taxidermists to sell mounted specimens of 

 birds, whether legally or accidentally killed in that State. There was also 

 no law against the sale of feathers of foreign birds unless belonging to the 

 same family as birds protected in the State. 



"There was a time," adds Bird Lore, "when Pennsylvania was a hotbed 

 for the wholesale millinery interests of the country that had been driven 

 out of New York State by the Audubon law." Speaking of conditions at 

 home, it adds: 



"Whether the Board of Trade and D. 0. R. A. have or have not suc- 

 cessfully stayed the importation of plumage, efforts to push the sale have 

 not ceased, and there is no doubt that after the war every means will be 

 tried to revive the trade, on the pretext of assisting either French workers 

 or Colonial interests or poverty-stricken natives by a harmless provision 

 of moulted plumes from swamps in Darkest South America or of clipped 

 feathers from Egret 'farms' in Darkest India. It behooves every bird-lover, 

 and especially every Hon. Secretary and member of the R. S. P. B. to 

 remember and to remind others, that the plume trade is essentially alien- 

 born and Hun-inspired; that the 'Osprey' is essentially a Boche produc- 

 tion, obtained by the killing of parent birds and young; and that the char- 

 acter of English trade and of English women will not be clean until the 

 whole business of trading in the feathers and skins of wild birds slaughtered 

 to serve foolish fashions is swept from the British market." 



