168 THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRD LIFE 



vive than the others. The plumes, at their best 

 in the breeding season, are worn only by the males. 

 The females therefore go unmolested and may 

 rear their young if they can do so alone. But the 

 demands of fashion have been heavy in the past, 

 and even of these birds several species have be- 

 come extinct. 



Ostriches likewise were hunted down and their 

 numbers thinned to the verge of extermination 

 for the sake of their plumes. An end, however, 

 was put to the .slaughter by the discovery, about 

 the middle of the last century, that they would re- 

 spond to domestication. On the other hand, their 

 American cousins, the rheas, have been less fortu- 

 nate ; their extinction is now in sight because they 

 have not the amenability of the ostrich in captiv- 

 ity. Thousands annually are killed for their small 

 plumes, and huge stores of feathers, baled and 

 ready for shipment, accumulated in the ware- 

 houses of Buenos Aires during the late war. 



Again, high up in the Andes, it is still a prac- 

 tice to catch great condors the largest birds that 

 fly in nets. The wing and tail quills are pulled, 

 together with a few soft feathers from around the 

 neck, and the bodies are tossed aside to rot. It is 

 said that condors are now becoming scarce. 



The same fate has attended a thousand other 

 species whose bright colors or graceful plumes 

 have fallen under the eye of the professional 



