112 BOMBAY DUCKS 
Common Birds of Bombay.” The bird is far from 
abundant in either Calcutta or Madras. A couple 
of blue jays live on the “Island” in the last-named 
town; but I cannot call to mind any others within 
municipal limits. It is not that the roller shuns cities 
and towns. Far from it. The bird is very common in 
Lucknow; I have seen as many as twenty of them 
studded over the mazdan in front of the Oudh and 
Rohilkand railway station. Nor can we explain the 
rarity of the bird in Madras by assuming that the 
climate is unsuited to the roller. 
The bird is common enough a hundred miles inland, 
and becomes rarer as one nears Madras. Any one who 
travels from Bangalore by the day train can verify this 
assertion for himself. 
The truth is that European and American women 
are responsible for the rarity of this beautiful creature. 
It is one of the many victims of the abominable practice, 
indulged in by some women, of wearing birds’ plumage 
in their hats. If this custom does not die a speedy 
death, all the most beautiful birds will, ere long, be 
swept off the face of the earth, in spite of the laws 
passed with a view to bird protection ; for such laws are 
easy to break. Few can be aware of the enormous 
trade that is carried on in birds’ skins, 
Every number of “Bird Notes and News,” the journal 
of the Society for the Protection of Birds, contains 
an entry similar to the following :— 
“ At the feather sale at the Commercial Sale Rooms, 
London, on 19th April, 1904, there were 161 pack- 
ages of osprey feathers, of varying quantities, these 
