INTRODUCTORY. 13 
skins at. forty cents’ apiece: . . . The birds 
comprised in this wholesale slaughter are mainly 
the different species of gulls and terns, or sea- 
swallows, of which large numbers could formerly be 
found.’ 
“A high-class American journal (Scéezce) contains 
a supplement devoted to this subject. It says that 
‘... the same sad havoc has been wrought with 
the egrets and herons along our southern shores, the 
statistics of which, could they be presented, would 
be of startling magnitude. We only know that 
colonies numbering hundreds, and even thousands, 
of pairs have been simply annihilated—wholly wiped 
out of existence—in supplying the exhaustless de- 
mand for egret plumes. The heronries of Florida 
suffered first and most severely ; later, the slaughter 
was extended to other portions of the Gulf Coast. 
As an instance of the scale on which these operations 
are carried, it may be mentioned that one of our 
well-known ornithologists, while on an exploring tour 
in Texas, heard an agent of the millinery trade soli- 
citing a sportsman to procure for him the plumes 
of 10,000 white egrets. . . . Grebes are used to 
such an extent that the source of the abundant sup- 
ply was not at first evident, owing to the comparative 
scarcity of the birds in the Atlantic states. It is 
found, however, that the supply is derived from the 
far West, mainly from the Pacific shore, where these 
birds are more abundant, and whence their skins are 
brought east in bales, like the peltries of the furriers 
or the ‘‘robes” of the bison. The number must range 
