3 J. 2 Notes and News. T'o'c!' 



pupil, and not in learning from books." Well would it be if the example 

 here set could be followed generally by the schools throughout the 

 country. Aside from the advantage to the pupil of the knowledge gained, 

 no better bird protection could be devised. 



The fashion journals just at the present time are not altogether 

 pleasant reading to bird lovers or to persons of refined or humane 

 instincts; for it is too evident that the absurd craze for hat decorations 

 composed of bird skins, either entire or in endless degrees of mutilation 

 and disfigurement, is again rampant. Thus a no less respectable fashion 

 journal than 'Harper's Bazar,' in its issue of Aug. 18 last, in an article 

 devoted to 'New Hats and Bonnets,' gives the following delectable 

 information to its readers, without a word of protest or lament, under the 

 subheading 'Birds and Wings.' ". . . . Blackbirds prevail, and are 

 poised in pairs, with beaks meeting lovingly, their wings and tails 

 pointing straight to give the shape of a large bow, and often resting on a 

 still larger bow of Liberty satin ribbon of many loops. This happy 

 arrangement is on the front of small bonnets, while large hats have a 

 second pair [of birds] across the back, resting on loops or choux of 

 ribbon below the upturned brim. Single birds perch on the front edge 

 of the brim of round hats, or nestle in the large ruche that surrounds the 

 crown — the nestling or brooding bird is not considered so effective as 

 the newly lighted bird with wings still in the air. The dear little black- 

 birds have been touched with color by French milliners, who hesitate at 

 nothing. They are given throat or breast of bluet blue, aubergine, or 

 emerald green, and their raven wings are also covered on one side with 

 these colors. Small bluebirds and others of pale yellow or pink are 

 givre with jet along their slender wings and pointed beaks. Large choux 

 made of feathers or stiff quills fioudre with jet are effective trimmings"! 



Other fashion journals not only give similar instructions to their 

 patrons, but illustrate these wonderful effects with appropriate figures. 



On the other hand, it is refreshing to find evidence in 'The Fashions' 

 column of some of our metropolitan newspapers that not all women are 

 devoid of sense and feeling in millinery matters. Thus in the New York 

 'Evening Post' of recent date we find the following: "The fact is to be 

 regretfully recorded that there is to be a rage for bird garnitures in 

 millinery. Birds in groups or singly, and often their heads, wings, and 

 breasts separately, form a decided feature of the season's very gay 

 millinery. . . . Blackbirds, canaries, seagulls, swallows, and birds 

 grotesquely dyed in various brilliant hues are seen on bonnets which 

 look smaller than the decoration, so large are some of the victims to the 

 brutal and perverted taste." 



Evidently there is still hard work ahead for the A. O. U. Committee 

 on Bird Protection, for the Audubon Societies, and for the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Animals Societies, to meet this renewed attack upon bird life 

 in the interest of the milliners' demand for 'bird garniture.' But more still 

 can be done by the sensible women of the country individually, by not 

 only refusing to wear such badges of barbarism, but by decrying the 

 fashion as brutal and vulgar. 



