88 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
stripped our Atlantic coast, the whole of Florida and the Gulf 
coast of egrets, terns, and hundreds of thousands of other birds 
acceptable to the milliners for hat trimmings, the ‘‘ plume hunt- 
ers’’ are now at work along the coast of Mexico and Central 
America, Lower California, and even upon the headwaters of the 
Orinoco and Amazon. Quite recently, two of them risked their 
lives with the Indians on Tiburon Island, Gulf of California, and 
lost their stake ! 
Many sportsmen have become so appalled by the slaughter of 
birds in general, that they have laid aside their guns, and taken 
up the camera instead. Already this has attained the dignity of 
a ‘‘movement.’’ But there is no corresponding general move- 
ment against bird millinery on the part of American women. 
The members of the Audubon Societies are a mere handful in 
comparison with the millions of girls and women who have not 
been stirred by the spirit of bird-protection. | No task could be 
more difficult or more discouraging than that of convincing the 
majority of women that the thing which is in fashion is of the 
right thing to wear. It is the belief of the writer that it will be 
far easier to induce the average sportsman to lay aside his gun for 
the sake of saving his favorite game birds from annihilation than 
it will be to persuade the average girl or women to refrain from 
wearing upon her hats the badly-stuffed birds and the hideous 
composites of wings, tails and feathers which occupy, but donot 
adorn them. 
Apparently the only remedy that ever will reach the root of the 
bird-millinery evil is that recently proposed by the League of 
American Sportsmen—a law forbidding the sale of birds ‘‘ for 
commercial purposes,’’** and its rigid enforcement. 
THE SCOURGE OF EGG-CoLLECToRS.—Throughout the north- 
eastern quarter of the United States, extending as far westward 
as the Mississippi River and as far south as Virginia, bird life 
generally is persecuted by a perfect scourge of egg-collectors, 
largely in the name of science, but really for purposes of mere curi- 
osity or trade. In the reportsnow before us, the outcry against the 
havoc thus wrought is very general and bitter. During the breeding 
season of the birds that nest in the region indicated, an army of boys 
“he wording of the passage ‘referred to in the Constitution of the 
League was proposed by Dr. J. A. Allen, expressly to cover the bird-milli- 
nery evil, as well as the sale of game. 
