The Destruction of Wild Birds in General throughout the World. 853 



For some years past about 40000 skins of these l)irfls, all 

 procured during- tlie breeding season, have l)ecn sold annually at 

 the London plume sales. This is l^ad enough. l)ut, to make matters 

 worse, females and immature males — whose skins are practically 

 worthless for trade purposes — are killed in addition to full- 

 plumaged males. 



It seems incredible to any right-thinking man that such a 

 proposal could have emanated from the Hague; nevertheless it is 

 true that in recent years the Dutch Government oiïered to sell to 

 one firm of feather merchants the sole right to kill all the birds 

 of paradise in Dutch New Guinea. The offer was not accepted; 

 not because the firm in question rose superior to temptation, but 

 because it thought the Dutch Government Avas asking too much. 

 But Avhether the offer w^as accepted or refused. I do not think very 

 important. The birds are doomed, in any case. But what is 

 important — desperately important — is that any nation, for 

 revenue purposes, should have the power to sell man's heritage 

 in nature. 



What man is there who can number the ages that natural 

 selection has been at work creating these exquisite pieces of 

 mechanism and beauty? While the world lasts the memory of it 

 will remain a thing supreme — supreme in capricious graces of 

 form, linked with capricious graces of colour, which simply capti- 

 vate the whole spirit, and lead it to adoration. 



Yet the hour is coming, as surely as the hand of a clock moves 

 to an appointed time, when the last bird of paradise will have 

 gone its way from the hat to the dust-bin. 



And not a single zoological or ornithological society, not a 

 single museum, not a single institute of learning, has lifted a finger 

 to prevent the sacrilege. 



Besides being extravagently wasteful of bird life, and terribly 

 cruel, the traffic in plumes is aggravated by crime. 



Exclusive of Ostrich plumes, and the plumes of game birds 

 and of domestic fowls, the majority of feathers imported into 

 Europe to be used in the millinery trade are either stolen or 

 smuggled, or both. 



Realizing that wild birds constitute a valuable asset to the 

 countries that possess them, and that it is good statesmanship to 

 preserve them, many oversea countries have done all in their 

 power to protect their birds, but in every instance their efforts 

 have been rendered abortive by illicit export. 



As my time is limited, I propose to do no more than to take 

 one country as an example of the way in wdiich these oversea 

 lands are robbed of their birds. The Hindu cultivator of the soil 

 was killing the native birds of India wholesale, finding more imme- 

 diate profit in selling the skins of his victims to the feather dealer 



