The Egret Hunters of Venezuela 



BY GEORGE K. CHERRIE 



Curator of Birds, Brooklyn Institute of 

 Arts and Sciences 



'HE country on both sides of the River Apure 

 and its tributaries is low and flat, with innu- 

 merable swamps and marshes. This country of 

 llanos is the Egret country, comparatively few 

 plumes being collected in the valley of the 

 Orinoco proper. The center of the plume 

 industry is at San Fernando de Apure, where 

 -^^bi.- " almost every business house, of whatever char- 



acter, has a prominent sign before its door of " Aqui se compra 

 PLUMAS" (Plumes are bought here). I have visited San Fernando 

 twice during my stay of a year and a half in this region, and each 

 time counted about fifty bungos which were employed by their 

 owners in plume hunting. 



These plume hunters' bungos are, as a rule, long, light dugout 

 canoes, with an arched covering like a wagon top for full a third of 

 their length, made of light matched lumber so as to keep provis- 

 ions and plumes dry. This word regarding the style of covering, or 

 carosas of these canoes may not be amiss, inasmuch as the ordinary 

 carosa is made of palm leaves and would soon be torn and become 

 leaky by the constant pushing through the tangle of the forest 

 swamps. 



The methods employed by some of the native plume-hunters 

 may explain some of the stories about plumes only being gathered 

 at the heronries after being molted by the birds. An ordinary 

 native's household furniture consists of a few pots and pans, ham- 

 mocks, and a blanket for each member of the family ; a small native 

 cedar wood-box, or trunk, containing the family wardrobe and val- 

 uables. These are all easily embarked in a bungo, with provisions 

 of casava and dried salt meat. The hunter and his family embark 

 and work their way up or down the river and back, through the 

 swamps and marshes, to the heronries, where they live until their 

 provisions, or the Herons, are exhausted. 



While in the heronries the man shoots every Egret that he can 

 possibly secure, while the women and children employ themselves 

 by picking up such plumes as are to be found under the trees and 

 along the edges of the ponds and marshes. Every sort of plume 

 is taken, good, bad and indifferent ; long and short, dirty and clean. 

 At the houses of the principal plume merchants in San Fernando 



(50) 



