1103 



PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS IN INDIA AND 

 TRAFFIC IN PLUMAGE 



BY 



P. T. L. Dodsworth, F. Z. S. 



In the Selborne Magazines for 1910, Mr. James Buckland has described 

 the enormous havoc which is being made among the birds of the world 

 to satisfy fashion's demands for millinery. For commercial purposes the 

 feathers must be procured during the breeding season, for the reason 

 that the plumes are at that period in their prime condition. At other 

 times they lack smoothness, lustre, and elasticity, and are, therefore, worth- 

 less to the milliner. Many species of birds resort annually to ancestral 

 homes with the object of reproducing their kind, and the feather hunters 

 avail themselves of these opportunities. Thirty years ago the heronries 

 in the United States contained about 3,000,000 White Herons, and now 

 they have been practically exterminated. In the low Coral Islands in the 

 North Pacific the destruction of birds by Japanese "plume hunters " has 

 been appalling. On Marcus Island, one of the largest Albatross colonies 

 in these waters has been wiped out. Midway Island was found, by the 

 United States Special Inspector of Birds and Animals, to be covered with 

 innumerable Albatross carcasses, which a crew of poachers had left to rot 

 on the ground, after the quill feathers had been pulled out of each bird. 

 On Lisiansky Island, the property of the United States and a bird reser- 

 vation, some poachers from Yokohama were caught, and it was found that 

 they had in their possession the skins and feathers of 300,000 birds. On 

 the Hawaiian Islands Preservations, twenty-three plumage pirates, who 

 were arrested, had in their possession 259,000 pairs of birds' wings. These 

 raids led to an interchange of views between Washington and Tokio, and 

 despite stringent orders issued by the Japanese Government, no check has 

 resulted on the activity of plunder. In 1898, 1,538,738 Egrets were killed 

 in Venezuela for their plumes, and ten years later only 257,916 birds were 

 found by the hunters. Exclusive of the plumes of Egrets, the port of 

 Cuidad Boliwar shipped in a single year (1908), 10,612 pounds, or nearly 

 five tons weight of other plumage. The American Jabiru, the largest but 

 one of all living storks, found in the shallow lagoons on the great Savanna 

 regions of the Middle Orinoco basin, is on the verge of extirpation— in 

 London alone about 30,000 of their quills are sold annually. So relentlessly 

 has the humming bird been pursued for its feathers, that certain species in 

 the West Indies with a restricted habitat are already exterminated, while 

 m the case of other species a similar fate seems imminent. In Trinidad 

 ohere were, till a few years ago, eighteen species of humming birds, now 

 r,here are only five. At three plume sales held in London this year, the 



