WHAT THE YOUNG EGRETS DO 217 
White Egrets think, for the men sit in their covered- 
up boats, quite silently—without speaking a word— 
and, as soon as they come near enough to them, fire 
at them and kill them. 
And now I will tell you another dreadful thing, 
which makes the killing of these poor birds more 
cruel even than you will have thought it was, though 
I am sure you will have thought it cruel enough. I 
have spoken of their having nests, so, of course, there 
will often be young ones in those nests, who cannot 
feed themselves, but have to be fed by the parent 
birds. What do the young ones do when the parent 
birds—their own fathers and mothers—have been 
shot? J will tell you. They starve. That is what 
they do, and that is what the women with the frozen 
hearts, who wear these feathers, know that they do— 
for they have been told so, now, often enough. Is 
it not terrible? For those pure, white, - beautiful 
feathers, not only have the grown birds been killed, 
but the young ones—their children—have starved— 
starved slowly—in the nest where they were born. 
Day after day they had looked out from it, to see 
their father or mother come flying to them, with 
something to eat; day after day they had not seen 
them, and when the night came—oh, they were so 
hungry! Before, how glad they used to be when 
they saw the great, white wings come floating to them, 
