The plume-trade, though now extensive and lucrative, is not 

 an old one, and it remains in but a few hands, so that in dealing 

 with it there are not the difficulties which might be involved in 

 touching an old-established industry, or an industry affecting 

 a large number of shareholders or of workpeople. (See page 30.) 

 As the business has attained to any magnitude only since about 

 1870,* it is easy to trace its growth and its methods. 



Present Policy of the Trade. 



The present policy of the traders is to try to shut the door on 

 all past experience, to decry all evidence as " many years old," 

 to stigmatize it as dealing with " conditions which have no 

 existence to-day," and to ask the public to accept a brand-new 

 version for which they themselves are the sole evidence. This 

 is hardly the way in which to consider a serious subject ; but as 

 past history scarcely inspires confidence in statements of to-day 

 or in the outlook for to-morrow, no surprise can be felt that it 

 is the way recommended by the party which is nervously anxious 

 to be trusted. 



I. 

 THE TRADE IN BIRDS' FEATHERS. 



In 1876 Professor Newton wrote to the " Times " (January 

 28th) : 



" Like others of my brother naturalists, I have been long 

 aware by report of the enormous sales of birds' feathers 

 which are being constantly held in London ; but the par- 

 ticulars of them do not, except by accident, come before us. 

 Chance has thrown in my way a catalogue, or portion of a 

 catalogue, of one of these auctions, and its contents are such 

 as to horrify me, for I had no conception of the amount of 

 destruction to which exotic birds are condemned by fashion 

 an amount which cannot fail speedily to extirpate some 

 of the fairest members of creation, for I must premise, for 

 the benefit of your non-ornithological readers, that it is 



* " The fancy feather-trade did not exist in the years 1860-70."" The Feather 

 Trade," p. 9. 



