60 



gunshot I determined to revisit the locality during 



my Christmas holidays. . . . There, strewn on the floating 

 water- weed and also on adjacent logs, were at least fifty 

 carcases of large White and smaller Plumed Egrets nearly 

 one-third of the rookery, perhaps more the birds having 

 been shot off their nests containing young." 



Colonel Ryan, President of the Australasian Ornithologists' 

 Union, gave the following evidence before the House of Lords 

 Committee, 1908 : 



" I can give you a very good example of what came under 

 my own personal notice about four years ago, of a rookery 

 where two young men went down and destroyed, and I think 

 they sold over 400 plumes. The destruction of 400 birds 

 meant, of course, the destruction of four times that number, 

 because they were all breeding at the time. The Ornitho- 

 logical Union in Australia has done everything it possibly 

 could to bring these facts under the various State Govern- 

 ments ; and last year I knew of another rookery in New 

 South Wales, where some brigands went down and destroyed, 

 I think, about fifty birds. We sent a photographer up, who 

 got a very interesting series of photographs taken. We had 

 these photographs reproduced in as many papers as we could 

 throughout Australia, for the purpose of drawing the atten- 

 tion of the public to the manner in which this destruction 

 was going on." 



Whether or not Egret plumes from Australia come, directly 

 or indirectly, into the London market seems to be of small 

 consequence, and does not affect the character of the trade 

 allegations. The photographs were taken after a plume- 

 hunters' raid, and evidence shows that plume-hunters' 

 methods are much the same the world over. 



