12 



has been put upon this atrocious business by the action of 

 the ladies' ' Society for the Protection of Birds/ an associa- 

 tion that cannot be too widely made known, or too highly 

 commended. I w r ould strongly urge all ladies who may 

 honour me by reading these notes, to enrol themselves as 

 members of this really beneficent society, whose only object 

 is the preservation from wanton destruction of some of the 

 most interesting and beautiful of organized creatures." 



In his chapter on the Little Egret, Lord Lilford wrote of it as 

 the most confiding and fearless of man of any of the Ardeidse, 

 but added : 



" It is probable, however, that by this time the poor birds, 

 or those that may be left of them, have learned that feminine 

 fashion has cast its eye upon them for personal decoration, 

 and that the hint of gain by this cruel folly has rendered the 

 animal Man, as a rule, a very dangerous neighbour." 



In 1899 Professor Newton returned to the charge, with figures 

 taken " from a source no more sensational or sentimental than 

 the ' Public Ledger,' " to illustrate the quantities of " osprey " 

 feathers and Birds-of -Paradise sold at the London feather sales. 



" Shot Down at their Breeding=Places." 



" It is," he added, " a fact known to everyone who will 

 take the trouble to enquire, that all these Egrets are shot 

 down at their breeding-places while they are building their 

 nests or rearing their young, and that if so be that the latter 

 are hatched, they die of hunger on their parents' death, 

 the breeding-places being absolutely devastated by the 

 plume-hunters. The personal experience on this point of 

 Mr. W. E. D. Scott, a competent and unimpassioned witness, 

 has never been, and cannot be, refuted as regards the Atlantic 

 and Gulf coasts of North America, where these settlements 

 of the birds are all but extinguished ; but the same thing 

 goes on all over the world wherever Egrets are found in 

 numbers sufficient to make their destruction a profitable 

 enterprise." 



