74 



by fatty matter after their removal from the birds. A large 

 number of these birds, therefore, were imprisoned in a great 

 dry cistern, where they were starved to death to reduce the 

 fatty tissue and save trouble in cleaning the skins. When the 

 revenue cutter " Thetis" arrived there were acres of dead bodies 

 and bones, and about three carloads of wings, feathers and skins. 

 All the latter were seized, with the exception of a shed full 

 of wings which were left behind for lack of space to carry them 

 on the ship. 1 The power of the United States government was 

 not sufficient to protect the islands from another similar raid 

 later by Japanese, and it is said that practically all the bird 

 islands in the Pacific at a distance from our coast are thus 

 periodically raided. 



Before the destruction of birds for millinery purposes in the 

 United States was checked by law and public sentiment, 

 enormous numbers of birds were destroyed. The millions of 

 egrets in the country were reduced to a few thousands, and 

 great quantities of grebes, nesting in western marshes, were 

 slaughtered. No reliable estimate of the number of birds 

 killed in the United States for millinery purposes has been 

 made, but fragmentary reports may give the reader an idea of 

 the extent of the slaughter and the money involved. About 

 70,000 bird skins were sent to New York from a small district 

 on Long Island in about four months. A collector brought back 

 11,000 skins from a three months' trip. One New York firm 

 had a contract to supply 40,000 skins to a company in Paris, 

 France. A dealer during a three months' trip to South Carolina 

 prepared 11,018 bird skins. A woman milliner went to Cobbs 

 Island, Virginia, to get birds to fill an order for 40,000 bird 

 skins. This order practically exterminated the terns then on 

 the island. Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, now (1921) president^of 

 the National Association of Audubon Societies, who compiled 

 his figures from the records and accounts of the feather hunters, 

 says that 500,000 terns were killed for millinery purposes on 

 the Sounds of North Carolina and South Carolina in se_ven 

 years. 2 Gunners were hired to kill the birds at 10 cents per 

 bird. One auction room in London sold in three months 400,000 



Hornaday, W. T.: Our Vanishing Wild Life, 1913, pp. 139-141. 

 The Bird Study Book, 1917, p. 141. 



