EGRETS’ PLUMES AND THE LADIES.


By F. Finn, B.A., F.Z.S.


[Mr. Frank Finn has kindly sent us a copy of The Asian

Sporting Newspaper , to which he is contributing a series of

articles entitled “ How to know the Indian Waders,” and in

which we find the following interesting and practical paper on

this momentous and burning question, to which we draw the

special attention of our readers.—R.P.]


HERONS.


The true Egrets, with which we are now concerned,

have attained a melancholy celebrity on account of our own

woman-kind looking with an envious eye on their wedding gar¬

ments. For the nuptial plumes of these birds, which are long,

with thread-like, disunited webs, constitute what are known in the

plumassiers’jargon, for some inscrutable reason, as “osprey.”

To obtain these, the poor birds have been most ruthlessly killed

off in many places, notably in America and in China, and

although such destruction has not overtaken them here as yet,

they have not altogether escaped by any means. The special

cruelty of killing Egrets for their plumes lies, of course, in the

fact that they bear them only when breeding, and that thus the

helpless young are left to starve when their parents have been

shot down. There has been lately some attempt made to

effectually stop this atrocity by rendering the wearing of “ osprey

plumes ” a legal offence ; and certainly something ought to be

done, for to kill a brooding bird is not only an unsportsmanlike

and cowardly act, but is set down as a serious sin in the Old

Testament. At the same time, it seems to me that in this case,

as in so many others, a compromise can be effected. The Ostrich,

whose plumes were once his cause of destruction, has now been

domesticated for their sake, and thus given a better chance of

survival than he ever could have had otherwise ; and I should

like to suggest that a similar policy be followed with our Egrets.

I have heard of an Egret-farm in Algeria ; and no doubt our birds

could be kept to supply plumes at a very cheap rate, if allowed

the run of a shallow tank enclosed in a wire-netting fence, and

fed on small fish, shrimps, chopped refuse meat, &c. Another

plan would be to regulate the taking of the birds, making the

capture of Egrets a monopoly of licensed bird-catchers, who

should pay a tax to Government, and be under strict obli¬

gations to let the birds go after clipping off the coveted plumes.



