40 FOWLS OF THE AIR 



nothing about it ; that he had better mind his own 

 business and look after the beam in his own eye. Cer- 

 tainly I am ready to admit that it would not impart 

 the faintest thrill of pleasure either to myself or, I 

 fancy to any one else, except rude little boys in the 

 street, were I to walk about with a humming-bird on 

 one side of my hat, a golden oriole on the other, and a 

 so-called ' osprey ' in the middle. All that I venture to 

 assert is that if ladies knew the realities of the plume 

 trade, they would either discard feathers altogether, or, 

 snapping their fingers at the tyrants of fashion, use 

 ostrich plumes, cut from birds bred for the purpose, 

 and the feathers of those domestic birds, game or wild 

 fowl, which are sold for food. Would that every lady 

 in London would pay a single visit to the East India 

 Docks, and see the millions and millions of bird skins, 

 ransacked from all the fairest places of the earth, to 

 enable fashionable folk, and their imitators, to comply 

 with a senseless decree. It would be an insult to the 

 charms of English women were any one to suggest 

 that their influence can be enhanced by the use of 

 feathers. At the present moment (1897), it seems, 

 feathers, except ostrich plumes and the above- 

 mentioned ' osprey ' (of which more presently), are off, 

 and ribbons are on. Will any man be so foolhardy as 

 to assert that, in consequence, he is less liable to lose 

 his head or his heart? Every hue that ever shone 

 on feathered fowl can be imitated in Coventry ribbons. 

 Would it not be better to provide employment for our 

 own working class in legitimate home industry than 



