DECEMBER II, 1913] 
NATURE 
429 
they are required to provide palatable food for 
hungry humanity? Why should any more ibexes, 
markhur, deer, wild sheep, antelope, bear, and 
such like wonders of creation be destroyed in 
India, at any rate till by increase in numbers they 
are prejudicial to the agriculturist? Why should 
they be killed merely to provide trophies for 
British officers or tourists, when their life-history 
is of profound interest and can be studied through 
the camera, and their presence in the landscape 
is a source of delight to the eye? Why, similarly, 
should any beautiful birds that are not harmful 
to crops be killed anywhere for the ridiculous 
purpose of adorning already-sufficiently-adorned 
woman? We would-be bird preservers do not 
object to the unlimited use of ostrich plumes, 
because such use is supported by the domestica- 
tion of the ostrich; we do not include the eider 
duck on our prohibition lists because its down 
feathers can be obtained without killing the pro- 
ducer; we do not refuse to the trade or the lover 
of beautiful objects the plumage of several kinds 
of duck and pheasant, because such can be obtained 
without bringing these particular types of bird 
near to extinction. In short, there is enough 
plumage in quantity and variety to supply all 
the needs of milliners, dress-makers-and-wearers, 
upholsterers, and even the purveyors of artificial 
flies for fly-fishing, without trenching on the rare 
and specially marvellous birds of the world, or 
the birds that are of incalculable use as insect 
destroyers and guano producers. 
The apologists of the trade in forbidden birds’ 
skins, or the defenders of the unchecked slaughter 
of interesting mammals by the rifle, are of a sadly 
limited type of mentality, so limited that an edu- 
cated naturalist is not on the same mental plane. 
Though he can easily parry their arguments, he 
cannot get them to understand his. But perhaps 
the foes of Mr. James Buckland who attend to 
harass him at his lectures are, together with 
their salesmen-colleagues at London auctions, 
remarkable beyond others of their class for 
their want of knowledge of the article they 
trade in and the local methods of their 
trade. They do not know for the most part 
the right name in English or Latin or the ap- 
proximate habitat of the birds they deal in. As 
to how the skins are procured, they probably only 
know that they bought them in Antwerp, Paris, 
Havre, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Trieste, 
Port Said, Calcutta, or Port-of-Spain. They have 
no knowledge of and no responsibility for the 
actual half-caste or native agents who do most 
of the killing or snaring. Occasionally, some 
specially important firm undertakes a commission 
for a rich curio-collecting client, and sends out 
an agent to some distant region to get into touch 
with the native hunters, but such a firm would 
scarcely take as much trouble over the bulk of 
its business—the supply of the millinery houses. 
As an illustration of the foregoing remarks, I 
should like to insert a passage from the writings 
of Mr. W. Emery Stark, which appeared a few 
months ago in The Times of Ceylon :— 
NO. 2302, VOL. 92] 
The Trade in Birds of Paradise. 
The Papuans (of Dutch New Guinea) are engaged 
by the traders to act as ‘“‘hunters.’’ The season, 
which begins in April, lasts for six months, and for 
the remaining six months of every year the Papuan 
spends his time in paddling about, and his money in 
buying ornaments and luxuries. There is a regular 
and well-organised trade in birds of paradise. The 
centre of the trade is at Ternate, where the traders 
live, and from where they start every year in March 
for New Guinea. The traders are chiefly Chinese, 
but there are two or three Dutch trading companies. 
The Government issue licences for hunting at 
25 guilders, or about 2/. a gun, and, in addition, the 
Government charge a heavy export duty on the birds. 
This year there were 4000 applications for licences, 
of which 1870 were granted, and one trading com- 
pany alone secured 240 licences. The traders engage 
the natives as “hunters,” paying the licence and 
finding guns and ammunition. Each “hunter” is 
expected to bring in for the season 20 skins of the 
“great bird of paradise’’ and 50 to 60 of the ordinary 
and less valuable sort. The former command at their 
first price from 1000 to 1200 guilders, or roughly 
tool. per ‘‘corge,”’ i.e. 20 birds. In the home market 
a “corge”’ realises from 150l. to 170l., and a single 
bird of extra fine plumage has been known to fetch 
as much as 4ol. or more. A rough calculation of the 
1870 licences issued this year, show that they are 
likely to result in the production of about 200,000 
skins. 
I wish the Government had received a steadier 
backing in the matter of fauna-preservation from 
the Zoological Society and the British Ornitho- 
logists’ Union. The attitude of the latter 
seems to be that so long as museum shelves 
are stuffed with specimens, birds may be iin the 
landscape or not. The last thing I desire to do is 
to fetter the researches of professional science. 
But I would remind fellow ornithologists that it 
is not only the skin of the bird for classification 
that is needed, but still more the bones, the 
muscles, and the viscera, and the living creature 
itself. This is not the material supplied by the 
trade collector. Yet, as a concrete example, look 
at the remarkable deductions in biology which 
have followed the illustration of the ceca and 
intestinal tracts in birds and mammals by Dr. 
Chalmers Mitchell; or the work of A. H. Garrod 
and F. E. Beddard in myology and windpipes. It is 
this material which is wanted by the biologist more 
than an endless multiplication of empty skins— 
this and the life-study through the camera and the 
note-book; and all such food for systematists and 
expounders of the New Bible could be supplied 
by game-wardens and those who should be placed 
in control of the wild fauna of our dominions. 
H. H. Jounston. 
Since the foregoing article was written, there 
has been placed in my hands a copy of a Govern- 
ment notice recently issued in Egypt—we may be 
sure not without Lord Kitchener’s knowledge and 
approval—referring to the shooting of animals. 
Lord Kitchener is no sentimentalist; but alike in 
his reports and his acts he has continuously used 
his influence for the preservation of bird-life in 
Egypt. 
