Vol. XVIII 



1 Report of Committee on Bird Protection. ^C 



The 1,023, ^^ said, were mainly Terns, Yellow-legs, Avocets, and 

 Willets. Another old hunter, watching the skinning, assured us 

 that he knew a man who could skin 600 birds in a day ! The 

 process he said consisted in ripping off the skin and stuffing in a 

 big wad of cotton. The principal birds taken, he told us, were 

 water birds, and he added that any white-breasted birds would be 

 bought by the dealers. We learned, incidentally, that strikingly 

 colored land birds were also marketed, among them Jackdaws, 

 Vermilion Flycatchers, and Nonpariels. 



" Of the water birds sold the old hunter named over the Least 

 Tern, the Black Tern, Wilson's Tern, the ' big White Gull' as he 

 called it, the Black Skimmer, Great Blue Heron, Long-billed Cur- 

 lew, Willet, and Avocet. 



" In quoting the market prices he said the great Blue Heron 

 brought 40 cents ; the Jackdaw, 9 cents ; big white gulls, 18 cents ; 

 wings of the Long-billed Curlew, 7 cents ; the Black Tern, 5 cents ; 

 Wilson's Tern, 18 cents; and the Least Tern, 20 cents, its price 

 having been 25 cents before the report came that they were not 

 going to buy any more birds. 



" ' Eggers,' as well as plume hunters, abounded in the neighbor- 

 hood. One man had an (tg^ collector's check-list which he used. 

 " The eggers and millinery men together had almost driven the 

 Pelicans from the neighborhood. One thousand Pelicans had for- 

 merly bred on Dimmitt Island, we were told, but although we went 

 over it carefully in the height of the breeding season, not a nest 

 was to be found on the island, and we saw only six Pelicans in the 

 neighborhood, and those flying over, a pitiful band contrasted 

 with the hordes which had been driven from their homes. 



" A million birds of various kinds had formerly nested on Bird 

 Island, some miles below Dimmitt, we were told, and as these are not 

 wholly exterminated, and the State law of Texas in that section pro- 

 tects gulls, terns, herons, pelicans and a goodly number of land birds, 

 it is to be hoped that the Lacey bill may still save some of the 

 birds on the island by stopping the millinery trade in the North. 

 For it is upon the northern market that bird protectors should cen- 

 ter their efforts. The plume hunters themselves, as we found them, 

 are mainly poor settlers in a country where it is hard to make a 

 living, and they shoot the birds merely to add a little to the meagre 



