Some reasons why International Bird Protection is necessary. 859 



iiave no legal riylil lo kill tlieni, as tliey arc thus depriving llic 

 State of (ine of its most valuable assets. I am not sufficiently 

 informed a])oiil the laws of European countries to know whether 

 wild birds are considered the property of the State, but if they 

 are, the milliners of Europe have no more property rights in birds 

 than have the milliners of the United States. 



1 am liappy to be able to say that in the United States, and 

 in fact the greater part of North America, the traffic in Avild birds' 

 plumage by the millinery dealers has been greatly restricted 

 through the efiforts of the Audubon Societies; however, to make 

 this restriction more efi:'ective, we need the help of all the great 

 world powers. 



America cannot protect her own birds if the countries of the 

 Old World ofïer a market for the plumage of American birds, as 

 thev are now doing. 



Twenty-five vears ago there were millions of White Herons 

 breeding in the United States; today there is only a pitiable 

 remnant of the same, and owing to the high prices oft'ered for 

 the plumes of these birds makes it difficult and almost impossible 

 to preserve even the small remnant remaining. 



The stock of tliese birds having beeii exhausted in the United 

 States, the plume hunters have followed the White Herons to 

 other parts of the world and in many localities these beautiful 

 examples of bird life are on the verge of extermination; this 

 extermination is caused solely by the millinery trade. 



The Birds of Paradise are another example of this unholy 

 traffic. The range of these birds being so much more restricted 

 than that of the White Herons, it will take a much shorter time to 

 exterminate them than it has the Herons. Have the milliners of 

 Paris, or London, or Berlin, or New York any right to demand 

 the privilege of selling the plumes of so valuable and interesting 

 a species as the Bird of Paradise when they know that they are 

 on the verge of extermination? 



Among the large reservations established by President Roose- 

 velt was one known as the Hawaiian Islands Reservation. 

 Recently Japanese poachers stationed themselves upon these 

 islands and before they were discovered by the United States 

 authorities, they had destroyed over a quarter of a million 

 Albatrosses, simply that they might take the wing quills for the 

 millinery market and ship them to London via Japan. Is this 

 right? Should not Japan aid the United States in the preservation 

 of her birds by entering into a agreement to that effect? 



The Americas have among their birds those little gems of the 

 air known as the Hummingbird. Hundreds of thousands of these 

 birds have been destroyed for the millinery trade and have been 

 sold at the London feather sales. In the February 1910 sale a 

 large number of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were sold; these 



