FEBRUARY 41 



to stimulate among South Sea islanders and long- 

 shore loafers the greed of exterminating some of the 

 loveliest creatures on God's earth ? 



Two instances, one of the ingratitude, the other of 

 the cruelty of milliners' fashions, must suffice to illus- 

 trate the urgency of the case. 



A few years ago owls' 'plumes' were the rage 

 for ladies' hats. Besides innumerable counterfeits, 

 thousands of the genuine article might be seen flaunt- 

 ing in the streets, evidence of the slaughter that had 

 been wrought among one of the most beneficent families 

 of birds. The nature of these plumes might itself have 

 testified to the usefulness of the original owner to the 

 thoughtlessness of the borrower for the structure of 

 an owl's wing coverts is specially adapted to noiseless 

 flight. The importance to the owl of being able to fly 

 without sound lies in his nocturnal habits, and in the 

 keen sense of hearing possessed by his chief prey rats, 

 mice, and voles. The services rendered to farmers, 

 gardeners, millers, and indeed to all rural householders, 

 by a pair of owls is quite beyond calculation. And how 

 do we reward them ? By shooting down this beautiful 

 nocturnal police, savagely tearing out wing-and-tail 

 coverts, fixing them on our feast day hats for a few 

 weeks, and then casting them on the cinder heap. 



To man, we are told, was committed the privilege of 

 devising names for all animated nature. He has, with 

 questionable modesty, reserved for his own species the 

 title of Homo sapiens Man the Wise. Sometimes 

 there is forced upon one the reflection that one of two 



