84 SEA-BIRDS 



and before we can reach a discussion of his present protection activities 

 we have to consider yet further some aspects of his past predation and 

 exploitation of sea-birds. One special kind of predation was extremely 

 damaging — the trade in plumes. The terrible depopulation and even 

 extinction resulting from it has been vividly described by many 

 writers, particularly in the early publications of the Royal Society 

 for the Protection of Birds in Britain and the Audubon Society in 

 the United States. The miserable business, which still continues to 

 a certain extent in Asia and the^Pacific, started in the nineteenth 

 century and in Britain marched closely with the rise of Victorian 

 fashion. Indeed, it no doubt dictated rather than followed any 

 Victorian fashion. At one time it seriously menaced British bird 

 populations — for instance, the persecution of kittiwakes on the big 

 Flamborough colony in the 1860s resulted in a fighting speech by 

 Alfred Newton, the pioneer ornithologist, to the meeting of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science in 1 868, which resulted, 

 in turn, in the Sea Birds Protection Bill of 1869. 



Terns however still came to some of the London sales in the first 

 decade of the present century in alarming numbers from abroad, such 

 as the sooty tern and the wonderful fairy tern, Gygis. 14,400 were sold 

 on 14 April 1906; in 1908, 18,000 on 11 February; 16,700 on 14 

 April; 16,500 on 10 June. It was not until 1922 that the Importation 

 of Plumage (Prohibition) Act was passed and stopped, at least in 

 Britain, this trade in dead birds for human decoration. 



In the United States the depredations of plume traders on the 

 Atlantic coast is described in detail by A. C. Bent (1921). Hunters 

 killed vast quantities of terns and took their eggs. On the coast of 

 Virginia in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first 

 decade of the present century, the large colonies of gull-billed, royal and 

 little terns were virtually annihilated, and similar destruction of terns 

 was recorded in various places from Louisiana and Florida north to 

 the New England states. As Bent points out, the most pitiful tale of 

 destruction is the story of Cobb's Island and other colonies on the 

 Virginian coast. In 1875 the Uttle tern was "astonishingly abundant" 

 all along the Virginian coast, and particularly on Cobb's Island. 

 But their destruction started soon afterwards. As Bent says, "Profes- 

 sional collectors for the millinery trade spent the greater part of the 

 breeding seasons on the island, and killed the innocent birds in almost 

 incredible numbers. The resident fishermen and oystermen also found 

 it a lucrative occupation. As many as 1,200 birds were often killed 



