CHAPTER VIII 



BIRDS ON HATS, BOYS, COLLECTORS, SO-CALLED BIRD 

 STUDENTS, BIRD HUNTERS, UBIQUITOUS GUNNERS 



IT is a pleasure to state that the fashion of wearing 

 birds on hats is certainly waning. Let every girl and 

 every lady interested in song birds refrain from wear- 

 ing any feathers except those of game birds, domestic 

 birds, and ostriches, and the plume hunters' business 

 will cease to pay and die a natural death. Intelli- 

 gent women, prominent in society, can easily place hats 

 with song-bird corpses under the ban. With the school- 

 girls, the teachers can accomplish the desired result. 

 Still more good would result, if some inventive genius 

 could discover a process by which artificial feathers could 

 be succesf ully manufactured from rubber, celluloid, or 

 some other substance. Perhaps the feathers of the 

 numerous varieties of domestic fowls could be so pre- 

 pared that they would satisfy the most divergent tastes. 

 Any one who would invent or perfect a process by 

 which the manufacture of artificial feathers would be- 

 come a commercial success, would be one of the great- 

 est benefactors of the birds. I am convinced that the 

 majority of women wearing feathers of song birds or 

 other wild birds do so from ignorance. Schools, 

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