75 



birds from America, and 350,000 from India, and this was only 

 one of the many firms in this and other European cities en- 

 gaged in this business. 



After the trade in American birds was largely checked, great 

 quantities of the skins and feathers of foreign birds continued 

 to come into American markets. When in 1913 a clause pro- 

 hibiting the importation of the plumage of wild birds was 

 introduced into the new tariff bill then pending in the United 

 States Senate, the Imperial German Charge d'Affaires at Wash- 

 ington entered a protest, asserting that the proposed prohibition 

 would entail a serious loss to the German industry of millinery 

 feathers. He quoted returns from the Consulate General of the 

 United States, showing that in five years the specified value of 

 feathers exported to the United States from the Berlin district 

 alone was $3,079,498. 



The tentacles of this vast octopus, the plumage trade, 

 reached into every land. A list of the wild birds slaughtered 

 at its behest, many of them in danger of extermination, in- 

 cludes many of the most remarkable and beautiful of the 

 feathered gems of the world. Australian lyre birds, South' 

 American rheas and resplendent trogons, the condor, the 

 largest bird that flies, the wonderful and beautiful pheas- 

 ants of India and China, the marabou stork of Africa, the 

 bustards, crowned pigeons, egrets and ibises, and scores more 

 from many parts of the world, are included in the list. This 

 enormous remunerative trade will exterminate species after 

 species, and when one is gone another will be used to take its 

 place, unless public sentiment can be aroused to secure both 

 the passage and enforcement of laws forbidding the possession 

 and sale of the plumage of wild birds everywhere. The plumage 

 of domestic fowls and that of game birds and ostriches raised 

 on farms can be so "manufactured" as to take the place of 

 that of wild birds, if women must wear feathers. The prepa- 

 ration of the feathers of poultry and ostriches is now an im- 

 mense and well-recognized industry. 



Shooting Birds for Sport. 



Most of the hunting of game birds now going on in North 

 America is done in the name of sport, although this sport sup- 



