Although imineiise nunibers of son^ and insectivorous birds are used for 

 this purpose, the greatest rage is for Egret plumes. 



These danty, graceful feathers, unlike the distorted skin of some poor 

 humming bird or warbler, carry with them no suggestion of death, and 

 many a woman on whose bonnet ihey are placed, is wholly ignorant of 

 the unspeakable cruelty which the taking of these feathers entails. If 

 each plume could tell its own sad history, every human woman in 

 the land would raise her voice against a fashion which threatens with ex- 

 termination the most beautiful of our birds. 



We hear it said that the feathers can be procured without Injury to the 

 bird, or that they are found after being shed; both statements are abso- 

 lutely false. The plumes constitute the wedding dress of the white Egret, 

 and are only worn during the nes-ing sea^on. The wholesale dealer sends 

 the plume hunter into the southern states where these birds nest in large 

 colonies or rookeries, of^ien hundreds nesting near together. The old birds 

 are not very shy at this season, and they leave the nest where the young 

 birds are, very reluctantly, therefore, the hunters find them an easy mark 

 and in a few days most, of the parent birds of the colony have been killed, 

 while the nestlings are left to die of starvation. One plume hunter boasts 

 of having killed 300 Egrets one afternoon and another boasts that he and 

 his party killed 130,000 birds during one season. 



"Dead fell the birds, with blood stains on their breasts, 

 Or wounded crept away from sight of man. 

 While the young died of famine in their nests; 

 A slaughter to be told in groans not words. 



What is to be done? 



True, we have laws to protect our birds, but laws are powerless when a 

 women has a fad in her head and a feather in her hat. 



It is a melancholy fact that among the enemies of our birds two of the 

 most destructive and relentless are our women and our boys. The boys 

 by inheritance have a mania for collecting egg'* and killing birds. It will 

 not take us long, however, to dispose of the small boy question. What is 

 the most potent influence in this world over the boy? It is mother. How 

 can she teach her children gentleness and mercy to the weak and rever 

 ence for life, when by her laws, and her actions sh6 contradicts the very 

 thing she tea;hes? It is to be hoped, and I believe it will be a /act, thar, 

 at no distant period of time, there is going to appear a ne v woman who 

 will bring with her new decorations for her head gear, a woman who will 

 spurn the idea of wearing a dead bird on her hat. Then mothers can 

 teach their children to love the birds, and teach them to observe the won- 

 ders of bird life by making them acquainted with the wonderful works of 

 God's creation, they will soon begin to love them. The better they be- 

 come acquainted, the more they will love them: the friend-ihip once sprung 

 up between them, will be the best protection. 



Finally a few suggestions pertaining to the solution of the problem of 

 bird protection might be in order. It will ta<fe time and much patient, 

 earnest effort to accomplish the desired end, even with the hearty cooper- 

 ation of all persons interested in birds. The Iowa Ornithological Asso.-'ia- 



