FEBRUARY 55 



Perhaps I have said enough upon this matter already, 

 but since the notes on pp. 37-44 were penned, the 

 question has entered upon a new phase. The Society 

 for the Protection of Birds has been so busy making 

 known by lectures and leaflets the truly abominable 

 proceeding necessary to keep up the supply of 'ospreys,' 

 that the demand has been affected. Ladies having 

 refused to decorate themselves with plumes so basely 

 borrowed, Monsiewr le plumassier has been compelled 

 to resort to artifice. Hitherto he would have been 

 righteously indignant had anybody hinted that his 

 ' ospreys ' were not genuine ; now he protests that they 

 are artificial. Many ladies have bought them on this 

 assurance, and it is time to inform them that they are 

 being deceived. So greedily is the harvest being reaped, 

 so abundant are the consignments from Virginia and 

 India, that it would not pay to fabricate white heron 

 plume. Let ladies be persuaded, therefore, to decline 

 to help off the trade with its ill-gotten stock, and 

 that a cock's plume or a bunch of ribbons even 

 a Tam-o'-Shanter will exact quite as much homage 

 from the other sex as the rarest plumes from 

 outre-mer. 



The traffic in 'ospreys' is only one of many other 

 branches which keeps collectors busy. Birds of 

 Paradise, humming-birds, chatterers, all the living 

 jewellery of the tropics, is being depleted to satisfy 

 this truly savage fashion. A remarkable tirade has 

 been uttered recently by the Jesuit Victor Cathrein 

 against the growing tenderness of modern Christians 



