164 THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRD LIFE 



plumes were easy to obtain; rookeries of ten 

 thousand gulls or egrets could be exterminated in 

 a single season — and were. The hunter entered 

 India, Borneo, South America, Africa, every- 

 where, and ruthlessly left a trail of dead behind 

 him. The natives, encouraged by his example, in- 

 creased their own activities. Plume hunting paid 

 well, and all collectors grew rich. 



But the hunter was not satisfied merely with 

 the ravaging of the out-of-the-way places of the 

 earth. The market demands for bright feathers 

 were daily growing. Prices were high. He in- 

 vaded his own home territory. Europe and the 

 United States became a slaughter ground for their 

 native birds. 



No country in the world was exempt from the 

 ravages of the trade. Employment was afforded 

 to thousands of men. Several thousand were at 

 the work of slaughter in America alone. 



On one occasion fifty boats filled with collectors 

 were observed in the harbor of New York in a 

 single day busy shooting gulls and terns. A man 

 on Long Island killed eleven thousand terns in one 

 season. Seventy thousand skins were shipped to 

 New York from that island in four months. The 

 gull colony of Cobbs Island, Virginia, was vir- 

 tually exterminated. Fifty-five million birds were 

 slaughtered for millinery purposes in the United 

 States in one season — a bird for every two per- 

 sons now living in this country! And the 



