73 



It hardly seems possible now that within fifty years the skins 

 of bluebirds, tanagers, orioles and even swallows were in de- 

 mand in Massachusetts and were used in some quantities as 

 millinery ornaments. Within forty years the egrets of the 

 United States have been almost exterminated, and the gulls 

 and the terns of the Atlantic coast so reduced in numbers that 

 at least two species have been nearly extirpated. When I was 

 in Florida in 1878 immense numbers of egrets were seen in the 

 swamps and on the lakes, rivers and lagoons of the southern 

 counties. Even then the plume hunters had begun their ne- 

 farious work, and ten years later the egrets were nearly all 

 gone. A remnant of their former vast numbers has been saved 

 by the wardens of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies. The inhuman and revolting cruelty of this business 

 should have brought about its abolition by the indignant pro- 

 test of the public. The birds were shot on or near the nests, 

 the plumes torn from their bleeding backs and the helpless 

 young left to starve. 



Terns were shot down all along the Atlantic coast, and often 

 their wings were cut off, while the suffering birds were still alive. 

 Half-naked savages were furnished with cheap guns and sent 

 into swamp and forest fastnesses in all parts of the world, 

 wherever birds of desirable plumage could be obtained. Mr. 

 A. H. Meyer of New York testified that he had seen plume 

 hunters in Venezuela tear the plumes from living wounded 

 egrets, leaving them to die of starvation, unable to respond to 

 the cries of their starving young in the nests above. He said 

 that he had seen heartless plume hunters tie and prop up 

 wounded birds as decoys, to attract others, until the terrible 

 red ants of the country had eaten out the eyes of these wounded 

 living but helpless birds. In 1909 a band of Japanese, headed 

 by a German adventurer, raided Laysan Island, then a United 

 States government bird reservation, and before they were dis- 

 covered and apprehended they had killed more than 259,000 

 birds. There were 259,000 pairs of wings found in the hold of 

 their vessel, with 2J tons of feathers, also some large cases and 

 several boxes of stuffed birds. 1 Many of the albatrosses taken 

 were so fat that the skin and feathers were likely to be injured 



Pearson, T. G.: The Bird Study Book, 1917, p. 141. 



