Marcu 12, 1914]. 
THE IMPORTATION OF BIRDS’ PLUMAGE. 
T O the Fortnightly Review for March Miss L. Gar- 
diner contributes, under the title, ‘‘ The Fight for 
the Birds,” a timely article apropos of Mr. Hobhouse’s 
Plumage Bill now down for second reading. She 
gives a history of the rise and progress of the contest 
against the slaughter and extermination of so many 
of the most useful and ornate birds of the world for 
the plumassier trade, which has never been more in 
evidence than in the past season or two, during which 
women have ‘“‘so gaily worn the brand of Cain in the 
street.’ Miss Gardiner quotes statistics from brokers’ 
catalogues, mainly of 1911, 1912, 1913, which show 
that, besides others, 132,000 ‘‘ospreys’’ were killed, 
8700 birds of paradise, 22,000 crowned pigeons, 24,000 
humming-birds, 23,000 terns, 162,000 kingfishers, 1200 
emeus, and 4500 condors. It is significant that, as 
the author remarks, ‘‘reports on the quantities now 
sold are no longer published in the Public Ledger 
since the House of Lords inquiry.” 
The outcry against this wholesale slaughter is 
not confined to the lovers of nature and the humani- 
tarians as such, but is loud from the agriculturists of 
the Himalayas, of Madras, and other parts of India, 
of Georgia, Florida, and Carolina, and of Egypt, 
whose crops are devastated by reason of the scarcity of 
the birds that heretofore destroyed the insect pests now 
ruining them. Strong official support has been given 
by the Zoological Society to Mr. Hobhouse’s Bill, and 
also by the British Ornithologists’ Union, although the 
trade journals claim beth societies, as well as quote 
the names of numerous distinguished scientific men, 
many of whose names were authorised under the 
impression that they were supporting the principle of 
the Bill—as in favour, not of the Bill, but as supporters 
of the Committee for the Economic Preservation of 
Birds. Unfortunately, the Zoological Society has been 
made to appear to the general public to support the 
Economic Committee—to which it is absolutely hostile 
—through the secretary of the society having accepted, 
in his private capacity, the chairmanship of the com- 
mittee. The corresponding Economic Committee in 
Paris, as recorded recently in Nature (January 29, 
p- 617), was entirely defeated on its very strenuous 
attempts to check the growing force of opinion ‘in 
France in favour of the protection of birds, fostered 
by the Acclimatisation Society. 
Miss Gardiner’s article should be widely studied 
by all who desire to know the rights and wrongs of 
the plumage traffic. In a letter ‘‘“On the Need for 
Protection of Rare Birds,”’ in the Times for March 3, 
the Hon. Charles Rothschild says he is impelled to 
write ‘‘as there is a danger of the [Plumage (Prohibi- 
tion)] Bill being defeated through the efforts of those 
opposed to the measure, who have formed them- 
selves into . . . the Committee for the Economic Pre- 
servation of Birds.’’ His observations fully corroborate 
what Miss Gardiner has stated about the objects of 
this committee in the Fortnightly Review. ‘One 
thing is certain,’ as Mr. Rothschild remarks, ‘‘ that 
many of the most beautiful birds have never been in 
greater need of protection than at the present time. 
In the Times of March 6 Mr. C. F. Downhan, reply- 
ing to Mr. Rothschild, trails once more the red- 
herring of the ‘“‘dead’’ egret feathers across the ques- 
tion. It has been abundantly proved that the plumes 
offered as “‘dead’’ were wrongly so described to quieten 
public opinion; and if, indeed, any ‘‘dead”’ feathers 
now come to the market, they are brought with the 
same object, and for the reason that the supply from 
slaughtered birds has decreased below the demand, 
not ‘‘because the area of protection is increasing,’’ 
but because the heronries themselves have been so 
NO e235. VOL. 93)| 
NATURE 4n 
depopulated. It is amusing to read Mr. Downham’s 
statement that ‘‘the nuptial plumes of the egret are 
borne by the birds long after the nesting time, and 
that the birds carry their feathers for seven or eight 
months of the year.” 
In the March issue of Pearson’s Magazine 
Mr. Hesketh-Pritchard describes the almost  in- 
credible cruelties perpetrated by the professional 
plume-hunters, the sworn testimony of one of whom 
he quotes, which is directly contradictory of the plume- 
traders’ reiterated declarations that the ‘‘egrets’’ are 
moulted feathers. The Spectator of March 7 has also 
a powerful article on the need for the Plumage Bill, 
from which the following sentences are extracted :— 
‘“. . . the activities of the [economic] committee 
appear at present to be centred hardly so much on the 
protection of birds which are being harassed, as upon 
definite opposition to the Bill which prohibits the 
importation of their plumage. ... The plumage of 
all birds is at its brightest in the breeding season, 
and it is at this season, therefore, that the bird is 
killed. No ‘economic preservation’ will alter that 
fact. The plain issue, in short, is... whether 
traffic in feathers which admittedly involves cruelty 
and which leads inevitably towards the extinction of 
species shall be permitted at all. So far as Great 
Britain is concerned, we hope that a Plumage Act 
will be the answer.”’ 
A public meeting will be held at Caxton Hall, on 
Thursday, March 19, at 5.30, under the patronage of 
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the 
Zoological Society, the Avicultural Society, the British 
Ornithologists’ Union, the Society for the Promotion 
of Nature Reserves, the Society for the Preservation 
of the Wild Fauna of the Empire, and other bodies, in 
support of the Plumage Bill. When the Bill is passed 
it will be illegal to import the feathers or skins except 
for scientific purposes, for which purpose a_ licence 
will be obtainable from the Board of Trade. It is 
confidently believed that such legislation will have 
far-reaching effects towards the preservation of rare 
and beautiful wild birds. The trade in ostrich feathers 
is specially exempted from the provisions of the Bill. 
Tickets (free) for the meeting may be obtained through 
the secretaries of the patron societies, or from the 
hon sec., Plumage Meeting, 34 Denison House, West- 
minster. 
THE VITAMINES OF FOOD: 
‘LEURENT, in his ‘‘Le pain de Froment,” shows 
that the grain of wheat consists, by weight, of 
the protective coat (15-6 per cent.), the embryo or 
germ of millers (1-4 per cent.), and the white flour 
(83 per cent.). The coat includes, in addition to the 
pericarp and testa, the aleurone layer of the endo- 
sperm, the remainder of which forms white flour. 
The bran of the miller, as removed by the metallic 
roller, includes the aleurone layer, which is not only 
a starchless layer, rich in fats, but contains the newly 
discovered bodies to which C. Funk has given the 
name of vitamines, and of which the first detailed 
authoritative account has appeared this year (‘‘ Die 
Vitamine,” von Casimir Funk, J. F. Bergman, Wies- 
baden, ro14). 
A discussion of their chemical nature would be out 
of place now, and must be left to organic chemists. 
It may be mentioned, however, that they do not con- 
tain phosphorus, they are not fatty bodies, and are 
distinct from lipoids. They are nitrogenous and of 
highly complex structure (e.g. the formula of 
one is C,,H,,O,N,); they are indispensable for 
- Summary of a lecture entitled a ‘Grain of Wheat,’ delivered in the 
National Museum, Dublin, on February 24, by Prof. T. Johnson. 
