THE EGRET 
in other parts of the world. At the present rate of destruc¬ 
tion, a decade or two more will make each of these American 
and foreign herons as extinct as the wild buffalo and the 
Great Auk. Then where will woman get her aigrettes ? Why 
could she not just as well cease wearing them now as a 
dozen years hence, and save these harmless and beautiful 
birds to hll their proper place in the natural economy ? 
That the work of destruction is going on with rapidity, one 
cannot fail to realize who has been to Elorida. There, years 
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This traffic has almost exterminated the two plume-bearing 
species of white herons found in the United States, — the 
Snowy Heron, a small species, with curling plumes, and the 
much larger American Egret, with straight ones. There are 
several other closely similar species in South America and 
FEMALE EGRET ON HER NEST 
