THE TRAFFIC L\ FEATHERS 



were reached. 1 reiiieiiil)er I'ollowiiiii witli 

 intense interest the description jiiven hy luy 

 companion of how these l)irds witli nuigniii- 

 cent snowy plumage would come flying in over 

 the dark forest hi^h in air and then volplane 

 to the little pond where, in the heavily massed 

 bushes, th(Mr nests were thickly clustered. 

 With vivid tiistinctness he imitated the cack- 

 ling notes of the old birds as they settled on 

 their nests and the shrill cries of the little 

 ones as, on unstead}' legs, thej' reached up- 

 ward for their food. 



Keen indeed was the disappointment that 

 awaited me. With great care we approached 

 the spot and with caution worked our way to 

 the very edge of the jjond. For many min- 

 utes we waited, hut nu life was visible about 

 the buttonwood bushes which held the nests, 

 — no old birds, like fragments of fleecy clouds, 

 came floating in over the dark canopy of 

 cypress trees. My companion, w'ise in the 

 ways of hunters, as well as in the habits of 

 birds, suspected something was wrong, and 

 presently found nearby the body of an egret 

 lying on the ground, its back, from which the 

 skin bearing the fatal aigrettes had been torn, 

 raw and bleeding. A little farther along we 

 came to the remains of a second, and then a 

 third and, still farther on, a fourth. As we 

 ai)proached, we were warned of the proximity 

 of each ghastly spectacle by the hideous buzz- 

 ing of green flies swarming over the lifeless 

 forms of the parent birds. 



At one place, beneath a small palmetto 

 bush, we found the body of an egret which the 

 hunters had overlooked. Falling to the 

 ground sorely wounded, it escaped its enemies 

 by crawling to this hiding place. Its attitude 

 spoke plainly of the suffering which it had 

 endured. The ground was bare, where, in its 

 death agonies, it had beaten the earth with its 

 wings. The feathers on the head and neck 

 were raised and the bill was buried among the 

 blood-clotted feathers of its breast. On the 

 higher ground, we discovered some straw and 

 the embers of a camp fire, giving evidence of 

 the recent presence of the plume hunters. 

 Examination of the nests over the pond re- 

 vealed numerous young, many of which were 

 now past suffering, others, however, were still 

 alive and were faintly calling for food w^hich 

 the dead parents could never bring. Later 

 inquiry developed the fact that the plumes 

 taken from the backs of these parent birds 

 were shipped to one of the large millinery 

 houses in New York, whore in due time they 



were ])lacc(i on Ihc market :is "aigrettes," and 

 of course subsequently purchased and worn 

 liy fashionable women, as well as by women of 

 moderate incomes, who sacrifi(;e much for 

 this millinery luxury. 



There were, at that time, to be found in 

 Floritla many hundreds of colonies of these 

 beautiful birds, but their feathers commanded 

 a large price and offered a most tempting in- 

 ducement for local hunters to shoot them. 

 Many of the men of the region were very poor 

 and the rich harvest which awaited them was 

 exceedingly inviting. At that time gunners 

 received from seventy-five cents to one dollar 

 and a quarter for the scalp of each bird, which 

 ordinarily contained forty or more plume 

 feathers. These birds were not confined to 

 Florida but, in the breeding season, were to be 

 found in swampy regions of the Atlantic 

 Coast as far north as New Jersey ; some were 

 even discovered carrying sticks for their nests 

 on Long Island. 



Civilized nations today decry any method 

 of warfare which results in the killing of 

 women and children, but the story of the 

 aigrette trade deals with the slaughter of 

 innocence by the slow process of starvation, 

 a method which history shows has never been 

 followed by even the most savage race of men 

 dealing with their most hated enemies. This 

 war of extermination, which was carried for- 

 ward unchecked for years, could mean but 

 one thing, namely, the rapid disappearance 

 of the egrets in the Linited States. As nest- 

 ing birds, they have disappeared from New 

 Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and also 

 from those States of the central Mississippi 

 Valley, where at one time they were to be 

 found in great niunbers. 



Quite aside from the professional millinery 

 feather hunter there should be mentioned the 

 criminal slaughter of birds by individuals who 

 have killed them for their own lady friends. 

 I know one colony of brown pelicans which 

 was visited by a tomrist who killed four hun- 

 dred of the big, harmless inoffensive creatures 

 in order to get a small strip of skin on either 

 side of the body. He explained to his boat- 

 men, who did the skinning for him, that he 

 was curious to see if these strips of skin with 

 their feathers would not make an interesting 

 coat for his wife. The birds killed were all 

 caring for their young in the nests at the time 

 he and his hirelings shot them. 



There was, a few years ago, in a Georgia 

 city, an attorney who accepted the aigrette 



