228 EXTERMINATION 
the extraordinary sentiment that has led them to introduce from 
other countries birds which, in the absence of their natural checks, 
will be nothing else than a positive nuisance; for so reckless is 
the manner in which they have been imported, that species 
possessing few or exceedingly doubtful recommendations to begin 
with have been carried over in abundance, and some of these 
cannot fail to become permanent settlers equally with those for the 
transportation of which the would-be “acclimatizers” might find 
themselves excused. All, however, in the battle of life will 
contribute first to the subdual and by degrees to the disappearance 
of the original inhabitants, which had hitherto constituted a Fauna, 
from a scientific point of view, perhaps the most interesting on the 
face of the globe. 
One other cause which threatens the existence of many species 
of birds, if it has not already produced the extermination of some, 
is the rage for wearing their feathers that now and again seizes 
civilized women who take their ideas of dress from interested 
milliners of both sexes—persons who, having bought a large stock 
of what are known as “plumes,” proceed to make a profit by 
declaring them to be “in fashion.” ‘The tender-hearted ladies who 
buy them little suspect that some of the large supplies required 
by the “plume-trade” are chiefly got by laying waste the homes 
of birds that breed in society, and that at their very breeding- 
time. The slaughter which formerly took place at many of the 
chief resorts of sea-birds on the British coasts was fortunately 
checked by Act of Parliament in 1869; but the infamous practice 
is still to some extent surreptitiously followed in secluded places 
(and they are not so few in number) where it can be pursued with 
impunity. However, no havoc in these islands approaches that 
which is perpetrated in some other countries, especially, it is surmised, 
in India—though there now contrary to law; and the account of 
the ravages of a party of “ bird-plumers” at the breeding-stations on 
the coast of Florida, given by Mr. W. E. D. Scott,) who in former 
years had seen them thronged by a peaceful population, is simply 
sickening. All efforts to awaken the conscience of those who 
tacitly encourage this detestable devastation, and thereby share in 
its guilt, have hitherto failed, and unless laws to stop it be not 
only passed but enforced it will go on till it ceases for want of 
victims—which indeed may happen very shortly. Then milliners 
1 Auk, 1887, pp. 185-144, 218-222, 273-284; 1888, p. 128. This series of 
papers is the more valuable because Mr. Scott records what he saw and learnt on 
the spot in the calmest language. Did we not know what his feelings were, 
one might, in reading his terrible narrative, lose patience with him for not 
expressing more strongly his detestation of the barbarities he recounts. But 
his abstention is doubtless attributable to the fact that his narrative appears in a 
strictly scientific journal, where sentimental expressions would be out of place. 
