FEATHERS AND HATS 71 
feather cloaks in their first perfection, through the lagoons 
and sluggish waterways came noiseless flat-bottomed 
boats, low on the water, and poled by the guiding Indian 
or half-breed. Astern sat the plume hunters, guns at 
rest and eyes eagerly scanning the foliage above their 
heads. ‘Ah! here is a rookery at last!’ (rookery being 
the name given to colonies of many birds beside the 
Rook). The parent birds are sailing gracefully to and 
fro, their long legs trailing behind, while they feed the 
newly hatched nestlings. For with the most crafty 
calculation the plume hunters wait for the time when the 
birds are hatched because they know that the parents are 
then less likely to take alarm and fly beyond reach. 
“The boat is stopped by the guide, who grasps an over- 
hanging branch close to where an opening in the under- 
brush gives a good view of the colony. 
‘““Bang! bang! Bodies crashing through the branches 
and pitiful cries of alarm mingle for several minutes, as 
the confused birds rise, remember their young, and return 
to die! When the smoke has lifted, the hunters clear the 
ground of the dead and dying and piling them in the boat 
begin to tear off that portion of the back, the ‘scalp,’ 
that holds the precious plumes. If all the birds were dead, 
the horror would be less, but time is precious; there are 
other rookeries to be visited that day, and so the still 
breathing and fluttering birds are also torn and mutilated. 
“Then the boat glides on, leaving death behind. Yes, 
but not the silence that usually goes with death, for there 
in a hundred nests are the clamouring hungry broods that 
will die slowly of hunger, or be victims of snakes or birds 
of prey, —the happier ending of the two. 
