314 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
far into the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands 
annually. ‘‘A few weeks ago we asked one of the 
largest London firms to oblige us by posting a cata- 
logue of real birds they had on sale. The list came, 
and consisted of mixed birds, mixed humming-birds, 
golden-breasts, canaries, paroquets, choice picked 
birds, merles, cardinal birds, &c. ; 306,000 in all. 
‘“‘ A society paper announced the other day that a 
woman appeared at a ball carrying on her person as 
many as sixty little birds; while a dressmaker had 
received an order to put one hundred and four birds 
on a single garment.” 
Comment upon statements such as these is scarcely 
necessary, and I need only ask my readers to bear in 
mind that the cases instanced are but a few out of 
many, a mere sample of many hundreds equally 
shameful and indefensible. 
Nor is this wholesale destruction confined to exotic 
birds alone, for myriads of larks, sparrows, robins, star- 
lings, &c.,are now annually killed, and their plumage so 
dyed as to resemble that of others which have already 
been persecuted to the very verge of extinction. Only 
a few weeks ago the society papers recorded the ap- 
pearance of a lady in a dress ¢vimmed with robins, 
and, although she was very properly ostracised by 
the remainder of the company, it is to be feared that 
the disfavour with which she met was due rather to 
the halo of semi-superstitious sentiment surrounding 
the robin, than to the fact that fifty or more useful 
lives had been sacrificed, in order that one in- 
ordinately vain and silly woman might for a few 
