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upon wearing." In the forest and the swamp, and on the remote 

 island, where there is no one to see and to note, in Guiana and 

 Papua and Brazil and the Congo, and the islands of the Pacific, 

 the plume-hunter's ravages are but an economic salvage of waste 

 material ! 



Could the veriest child credit such absurdities? This, we arc 

 to suppose, is why the plume-hunter is held at bay by force of 

 arms and by stringent laws in civilized lands ; this is why such 

 reports as the following constantly come from countries where 

 naturalists write of the facts within their own experience : 



Extermination in Florida. 



" The brutal savagery, which is characteristic of this 

 phase of bird destruction has been well illustrated in the 

 extermination of Egrets of the United States. Twenty-five 

 years ago these beautiful birds were abundant in some 

 Southern states. They are shy birds during most of the year, 

 feeding chiefly in deep swamps and along lonely w r ater 

 courses. In the breeding season they gather into heronries. 

 Then much of their shyness disappears under the stress of 

 providing for their young. . . Nesting- time was the plume- 

 hunter's opportunity. So the old birds were shot, the 

 plumes stripped from their backs, and the young left to 

 starve in the nest or become the prey of hawks, crows or 

 vultures. When I was in Florida in 1878 one heronry was 

 estimated to contain three million birds. Now they are 

 practically extirpated. They have been pursued along the 

 coasts of Mexico and into Central and South America. The 

 search is extending into all countries where they may be 

 found. Half -savage Indians and negroes are enlisted in 

 the slaughter, supplied with guns and ammunition, and sent 

 wherever they can find the birds. A similar slaughter took 

 place among the sea-birds along the Atlantic coast. The 

 birds were shot down on their breeding grounds and their 

 wings cut off. In Massachusetts this trade bore most heavily 

 upon the Gulls and Terns." "Useful Birds and their 

 Protection," by E. H. Forbush, Ornithologist to the 

 Massachusetts Board of Agriculture : 1907. 



