1 86 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY 



and insipid; perhaps the Chinese, who are noted cooks, are able to give 

 it a remarkably desirable flavor. 



One of the most ancient and widespread uses to which birds are put 

 is for the personal adornment of mankind. This largely useless and 

 barbarous custom, thanks to the efforts of the Audubon Society and 

 other organizations, is gradually disappearing among civilized peoples, 

 so far as it necessitates the killing of birds for the sake of their plumage. 



One of the best, or rather worst, illustrations of the lengths to which 

 man will go along these lines is to be seen in the famous Bishop Museum 

 in Honolulu, H. I. There are here to be seen the royal robes made of 

 yellow feathers and said to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

 The yellow feathers for these robes were obtained, it is said, from a small 

 patch of yellow feathers on the breast of a bird about the size of a robin. 

 The numbers of these small birds that must have been slaughtered to 

 obtain the thousands of feathers in each of these gorgeous robes can be 

 imagined, as each patch of yellow, so far as the writer can remember, 

 was not greater in area than a square centimeter. The wearing of 

 aigrets by women in the so-called "best society" was a custom hardly 

 less barbarous, since, as is now generally known, these aigrets were the 

 nuptial plumes of the white herons, Fig. 116, Ardea egretta and other 

 species, to obtain which the adults were slaughtered during the breed- 

 ing season, which often left the young to die of starvation after the 

 parent birds were killed. These beautiful birds were once to be seen 

 by the thousands, in the south, while now one may travel the swamps 

 for days without seeing one. Fortunately the government has at 

 last taken a hand in the protection of the egrets against this useless 

 slaughter, and perhaps in time they may again become abundant. 



Another group of beautiful birds that man formerly hunted most 

 ruthlessly for their plumage are the Birds of Paradise. The natives 

 of the Orient hunted them with blunt arrows, with snares, with bird- 

 lime and in other ways, and civilized (?) man used his superior weapons 

 to destroy, still more rapidly, these wonderfully beautiful creatures. 

 Fortunately public sentiment and federal laws are now beginning to 

 frown upon this kind of slaughter and perhaps the Paradise birds may 

 be saved from the fate of the passenger pigeon. 



An important avian product is guano, a most valuable fertilizer 

 found on certain islands and coasts of the South Pacific, especially on 

 the Chincha Islands, off the coast of Peru. This material consists of the 



