140 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



business of supplying the demand for this kind of 

 feminine adornment must doubtless continue to 

 flourish in our midst, commerce not being com- 

 patible with morality, but the material comes from 

 other lands, unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Pro- 

 tection Acts, and " individual efforts, and thousands 

 of centres of personal influence " ; it comes mainly 

 from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and 

 birds a brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, 

 does not greatly affect the question of our native 

 bird life, and the consideration of the means, which 

 may be within our reach, of making it more to us 

 than it now is. 



Some species from warm and even hot climates 

 have been found to thrive well in England, breeding 

 in the open air ; as, for instance, the black and the 

 black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the man- 

 darin and summer ducks, and others too numerous 

 to mention. But these birds are semi-domestic, and 

 are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can 

 stand the climate and propagate when thus pro- 

 tected from competition is not strange ; for we know 

 that several of our hardy domestic birds — the fowl, 

 pea-fowl, guinea-fowl, and muscovy duck — are 

 tropical in their origin. Furthermore, they are all 

 comparatively large, and if they ever become feral in 

 England, it will not be for many years to come. 

 That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an 



