46 Mellor, Destruction of Birds. [,sf "juiy 



These, I know, are on the protected Hst ; but Mr. Buckland shows in his 

 address that destroyers have no regard for protective law. I therefore 

 venture to send \\\^ Journal^ on the principle of ' forwarned forearmed.'" 



Mr. Buckland, the promoter of the Plumage Bill, in his 

 address before the Royal Society of Arts, gives some astonishing 

 facts and figures, all of which have been compiled from diplo- 

 matic, consular, and other official records. Inter alia, he says 

 that, if birds are undisturbed in their wild state, a sufficient 

 number of young are reared to balance the decrease caused by 

 old age, epidemics, storms, famine, predatory foes, and other 

 natural causes, and maintain the species in strength and 

 efficiency. If, on the contrary, the birds are prevented from 

 breeding for one season alone, the species is weakened, and, if 

 this continues, the extermination of that species is only a matter 

 of time. Now, the majority of the feathers used in millinery, 

 and certainly all the high-priced ones, are taken from the body 

 of the bird during the breeding season. There are two reasons 

 why this must needs be so. In the first place ornamental 

 feathers are profitable goods only when rich in the brilliancy 

 and abundance begotten of sexual selection — in other words, 

 when the bird has mated, or when it is about to mate. At all 

 other times the feathers lack lustre, smoothness, and elasticity, and 

 are moulted in that condition, and are, therefore, of little value 

 for trade purposes. In the second place, with the majority of 

 species it is when the birds are breeding that the one favourable 

 opportunity of killing them arises, as they then return from 

 abroad, and annually journey to an ancestral breeding-ground, 

 and this is the plume-hunter's opportunity. It is doubly his 

 opportunity, for then most of a bird's natural fear of man 

 disappears under the stress of providing for and protecting its 

 young. This is why the annual gathering of plumes is 

 immeasurably the most destructive of all destructive agencies 

 now operating against bird-life. It is a harvest of death, because 

 it is reaped at the sowing of life. 



Regarding "aigrettes" or "ospreys," it is stated that, in 

 Venezuela alone, in 1898, no fewer than 1,538,738 White Herons 

 were killed, and in 1908 the ranks had become so depleted that 

 only 42,986 ozs. of feathers could be collected. As it requires 

 six birds to produce an ounce, 257,916 were slaughtered. This 

 does not include the young birds left to starve and die in the 

 nests. Thirty years ago it is estimated that 3,000,000 White 

 Herons inhabited Florida, and to-day these birds are said to be 

 comparatively rare. In Venezuela the majestic Jabiru or 

 Giant Stork is falling a victim to fashion, as there is a growing 

 demand during the last ten years for the large quills of the wing 

 and tail. In the London plume sale alone there were catalogued 

 28,250 of these quills, which would need a very large number of 

 birds to produce. Venezuela does a large export business in 



