1112 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



(b). In 1908-1909 a case of attempt to export by train 823 Jungle fowl 

 skins, with feathers complete, was detected at Castle Rock. The exporter 

 was fined Rs. 300, and was given the option of redeeming the feathers on 

 payment of Rs. 4,000. 



MADRAS. 



During the year 1907-1908 there were 10 cases of attempted exportation 

 of Osprey feathers from the above port. The penalties imposed amounted 

 to Rs. 3,005. 



BURMA. 



The only important case of smuggling of feathers reported from the 

 above is one which occurred in 1909-1910. The goods were exported from 

 Madras to Rangoon, but as this could not be regarded as " exportation out 

 of British India," the matter was dealt with as a misdeclaration only, 

 and a nominal penalty imposed. 



There will doubtless be a marked diminution in cases such as those 

 mentioned above, if, and when, the Bill prohibiting the sale of plumage 

 and skins of certain birds, which is at present before the House of 

 Commons, becomes law. But there seems little hope of stamping out 

 altogether this nefarious traffic, so long as the vicious taste for wearing- 

 feathers and skins of birds by the fair sex in their head-gear continues. 

 "Woman," says Mr. Buckland, "has come down through the ages as 

 embodied mercy, tenderness and compassion. Sculptors have represented 

 her with the deep, maternal breast against which tearful little children 

 nestle for succour and comfort. Painters have depicted the poor and 

 the oppressed fleeing to her for refuge from cruelty and wrong. "Writers 

 have given her the semblance of Venus, the peerless goddess, who, because 

 of her solicitude for the birds, would not permit victims to be offered 

 her or her altars to be stained with blood. 



" What a travesty of this, the world's reverent ideal of womanhood, is 

 the befeathered Herodias of modern times ! Is there in the wide world a 

 more repugnant anomaly than the spectacle of modern woman— claiming to 

 be more tender than man— transformed, at the beck of fashion, into a crea- 

 ture heedlessly destructive of bird life, and in practice as blood-thirsty 

 as the most sanguinary beast of prey ? It cannot be said in apology for her 

 sin that she errs in ignorance. So much has been written and said about 

 the brutal methods by which her feathers are obtained that the old subter- 

 fuges have become too battered to stand. Even those soothing emollients 

 she was wont to apply to her conscience, < artificial ' and ' moulted,' have 

 become too impaired by constant refutations to be of further service. She 

 knows, no one better, that art cannot reproduce a feather, and she would 

 toss her head in high disdain if asked to wear a moulted plume." 



