INTRODUCTORY. II 
—not a scientific collection, but one to be treated 
and considered much as a collection of crests or 
monograms? And the nest-hunting schoolboy is 
by no means the only offender in this respect. How 
many adult birds are killed off by agriculturists, 
owing to mistaken ideas of their character? Still 
more unpardonable, because justified by no possible 
shadow of excuse, how many thousands—nay, how 
many millions—are annually slain, that their plumage 
may aid in the so-called adornment of feminine 
costume ? 
As few are acquainted with the extent of this 
shameful traffic, I quote the statistics of a single 
metropolitan auction-room for the first four months 
of the year 1885. In that short period of time, 
and in that one room, were sold more than 
seven hundred and sixty thousand skins of West 
Indian, Brazilian, and Indian birds, besides thou- 
sands of Impeyan pheasants, birds of paradise, and 
others from different parts of the world. And even 
this number, appalling as it is in its magnitude, 
represents little more than two-thirds of the victims 
slain to supply this one small branch of the trade, 
a large proportion necessarily being so mutilated in 
the slaughter as to render them totally worthless for 
purposes of commerce. 
All countries alike, from the Arctic regions to the 
Tropics, are called upon to yield their guofa of vic- 
tims to this hateful and deplorable fashion. From a 
leading article in one of the daily newspapers we 
learn that forty thousand terns, or sea-swallows, were 
