Correspo?idence. 221


CORRESPONDENCE.



"RUTHIYESS IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN BIRDS."


Sir, — I am as mucli impressed by it as ever Mr. Astley can be, but

what can we aviarists do ? Personally I would never buy a bird again if the

wholesale destruction of the Japanese Robin and other foreign birds would

thereby be prevented. If he, or any other member could suggest a means,

all of us would only be too glad to combine to fight in the cause of those

innocent and beautiful creatures we love so well. The few, the very few,

out of that one consignment of 6,000 Japs which fell into the hands of the

true bird lover, may lead happy enough lives, but what becomes of the rest

is a mystery to me : even at a shilling or niuepence each, who buys them ?

If they do not perish from the crowding, dirt, and foetid atmosphere of

the dealers' shops, they must quickly succumb to the regimen and treat-

ment accorded to the ordiuar}' Canary by the tyro in bird-keeping.


I am glad the so-called Virginian Nightingale is 32/6, on account of

its protection, instead of the 15/- it used to be ; and so doubtless are other

members, though it will debar me from replacing the old friend I have lost

after seventeen years. And the dear Blue Robins, too ; one can almost be

glad one never sees them advertised now, so excellent is the cause !


As for " the slaughter of birds for women's hats," — that case is quite

hopeless, and all one can do is to bear it as best one can, for since fashion

so decrees, feathers women will have, though they had to see the birds-

butchered before their eyes. No matter the example and wishes of our

Queen ; no matter the pleading of the merciful ; the pitiful stories of the

poor Egrets and their offspring in the breeding season, have them they

will. If babies' scalps were to be le dernier cri, after the fashion the North

American Indian, we used to read about, wore those of his enemies in battle,

it would be all the same, safe to say. I wish Mr. Astley would " snatch off

any woman's hat which nourishes Bird-of- Paradise plumes etc., and leave

the wearer to go home bare-headed," though I am afraid he would come off

second-best when the hour of reckoning came, before the Justice of the

Peace, especially if the lady happened to be young and pretty. Now, un-

fortunately these huge plumes are worn other than in hats, — in the hair

itself, as I learned to my cost when I found myself sitting behind one the

other night in the stalls of a theatre ; little else could be seen than these

waving dazzling filaments of the Paradise plume, but what matter bird or

audience if only it is " worn " ; The " biggest bag" I ever saw on one hat

was fifteen heads of the Blossom-headed Parrakeet in a shop-window in

Regent Street. Fifteen! this sounds like exaggeration but it is not, I

counted them many times, I tortured myself by counting them. Fight

poor heads in a ghastly cluster at the top, seven ditto ditto underneath the

brim ! The next most tragic spectacle of the kind to come before my



