17 



simple tests which at once reveal the true feather ; and in all 

 probability it would have been placed on the market if the plume- 

 trade had had the least desire to see it there. Obviously their 

 interest would not be served by the superseding of their own 

 commodity, a commodity, moreover, which was to hand through 

 their agents and cost little in wages for preparation. 



Similarly, a few soiled Egret plumes may be picked up and 

 come into the market, together with the admittedly superior 

 ones taken from the slaughtered bird ; and it is credible that 

 some landowners may be making strong efforts to keep the 

 destructive plume-hunter off their lands by such laws as can be 

 hoped for on the vast lands and swamps of Venezuela ; but 

 neither the making of hog's-bristle aigrettes, nor the effort of a 

 State here and a landowner there to protect the birds as best they 

 know how, alter one whit the whole character and tenor of the 

 trade in birds' feathers, nor the quality of the statements by 

 ^hich it has been, arid is being, defended. 



The Aim of the R.S.P.B. 



The aim of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has 

 been from the first to seek out facts. It investigated the facts 

 concerning the Ostrich feather, and came to the conclusion that, 

 although cruelty might be practised, it was not necessarily 

 involved in the procuring of the plumes, and that the business 

 stands on a wholly different plane from that which is dependent 

 upon the killing of countless wild birds. 



When the " artificial osprey " was heralded in the papers 

 and in the milliners' shops, the Society asked, again and again, to 

 be furnished with an artificial plume and to be directed to the 

 factory where such things were made. As neither request was 

 ever complied with, and as it was proved that the feathers of the 

 Heron and Egret were being widely sold as artificial, it was only 

 possible to form only one conclusion. (See p. 39.) 



When, shortly after the House of Lords Committee made its 

 report, a letter signed " Leon Laglaize " was being circulated, 

 the Society took the same course. The letter did not commend 

 itself to serious attention, since it was issued without the name 

 of recipient or publisher, and contained a statement with regard 



B 



