The White Egrets 69 



known as "dead feathers." They are worth locally not over $3.00 an ounce. 

 While the feathers taken from the bird, known as "Hve feathers," are worth 

 $15.00 an ounce. 



My work led me into every part of Venezuela and Colombia where these 

 birds are to be found, and I have never yet foimd or heard tell of any garceros 

 that were guarded for the purpose of simply gathering the feathers from the 

 ground. No such a condition exists in Venezuela. The story is absolutely 

 without foundation, in my opinion, and has simply been put forward for com- 

 mercial purposes. The natives of the country, who do virtually all of the 

 hunting for feathers, are not provident in their nature, and their practices 

 are of a most cruel and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull the 

 plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds to die of starvation, 

 unable to respond to the cries of their young in the nests above, which were 

 calling for food. I have known these people to tie and prop up wounded 

 Egrets on the marsh where they would attract the attention of other birds 

 flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they die of their wounds 

 or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of that country 

 actually eating out the eyes of these wounded, helpless birds that were tied 

 up by the plume-hunters. I could write you many pages of the horrors prac- 

 ticed in gathering aigrette feathers in Venezuela by the natives for the mil- 

 linery trade of Paris and New York. 



"To illustrate the comparatively small number of dead feathers which 

 are collected, I will mention that in one year I and my associates shipped to 

 New York eighty pounds of the plumes of the large Heron and twelve pounds 

 of the little recurved plumes of the Snowy Heron. In this whole lot there were 

 not over five pounds of plumes that had been gathered from the ground — and 

 these were of little value. The plume-birds have been nearly exterminated in 

 the United States and Mexico, and the same condition of affairs will soon exist 

 in tropical America. This extermination will come about because of the fact 

 that the young are left to starve in the nest when the old birds are killed, any 

 other statement made by interested parties to the contrary notwithstanding. 



"I am so incensed at the ridiculously absurd and misleading stories that 

 are being pubHshed on this question that I want to give you this letter, and , 

 before delivering it to you, shall take oath to its truthfulness." 



