45 



plumes for this purpose was so absurd a fiction that it is judiciously 

 omitted from the testimony of Mr. Laglaize which is printed in 

 " The Feather Trade." However, it is evidently considered to 

 be too good a story to be wholly lost, and so part of the statement 

 is adopted by the trade's second witness M. Mayeul Grisol, but 

 is transferred to another bird, the " tordito," which is des- 

 cribed as lining its nest with quantities of Egret feathers. 

 These, it is said, are, after the young have flown, disentangled 

 and collected by the hunters ; the bird, according to M. Grisol, 

 builds its nest at the season when the Egrets are moulting, and 

 the delicate filaments remain none the worse for the rearing 

 upon them of a family of young birds ! 



Little need be said with respect to the testimony of M. Grisol, 

 who states that he is personally interested in the plumage-trade 

 and himself a dealer and collector of Egret plumes. His general 

 assertion is that the feathers from Venezuela " are for the greater 

 part gathered plumes, and it is exceptional for them to come from 

 the few birds that the natives have killed for food." That 

 natives kill but few of these birds for food is undoubtedly true. 



Evidence of recent Travellers. 



Here may be cited the words of two recent travellers who are 

 not associated with the feather- trade : 



" Among the most important articles of export from 

 Ciudad Bolivar are .... and feathers, Of the last item 

 the quantity is amazing when one considers what a slaughter 

 of the feathered tribe it implies. We met a Frenchman here 

 who was just booking for shipment to Paris several hundred 

 thousand Egrets, the result of a three years' hunt in 

 the forests and plains of the Orinoco basin. But 

 he was not the only one engaged in this wholesale 

 slaughter of birds. There were many others, and their 

 work of despoiling the tropics of their most attractive 

 ornaments extends to all the vast regions on both sides of 

 the equator. The small Egret A. candissima, which supplies 

 the most valuable plumes, and the large Egret A. garzetta, 



