BIBB NOTES ANB NEWS. 



87 



Staffs. Field Club, and at once a little sum of 

 money was subscribed as a slight recognition of 

 the signalman's action in saving the young red- 

 shanks. His surprise on receiving such an ac- 

 knowledgment of his simple kindly act was, says 

 our correspondent, "beautiful to see." 



Donations to the Society. 



The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has 

 received, through Mrs. Wynnard Hooper, a dona- 

 tion of eighteen guineas as an In Memoriam gift 

 from friends of the late Mrs. Hubbard, of Kew. It 

 is the result of a collection made by a few of Mrs. 

 Hubbard's nearest friends, at Kew and elsewhere, 

 who considered it would be in accordance with 

 Mrs. Hubbard's own view and feelings, that they 

 should send a contribution to the Society in which 

 she took a very great interest, instead of buying 

 flowers for her funeral. Mrs. Hubbard was one 

 of the early members of the Society, and her death 

 in May last deprived it of a generous and sym- 

 pathetic supporter. The Society has also received 

 a bequest of five guineas under the will of the late 

 Miss Jane Ferraby, of Parkstone, Dorset, who was 

 likewise an old and valued member, having been 

 enrolled in 1898. 



FEATHERED WOMEN. 



Mr. G. Bernard Shaw's opinion as to the use 

 of dead birds for a lady's headdress is shared by 

 very many persons, but his method of expressing it 

 is all his own, and his letter, which appeared in 

 the " Times " of July 3rd last, excited notice and 

 comment such as few headdresses composed of 

 dead birds and fragments of birds have aroused. 

 After recording his sentiments regarding the even- 

 ing dress imposed upon him by the sumptuary laws 

 of Covent Garden, Mr. Shaw proceeds : — 



"At 9 o'clock (the Opera began at 8) a lady came 

 in and sat down very conspicuously in my line of 

 sight. She remained there until the beginning of 

 the last act. I do not complain of her coming late 

 and going early ; on the contrary, I wish she had 

 come later and gone earlier. For this lady, who 

 had very black hair, had stuck over her right ear 

 the pitiable corpse of a large white bird, which 

 looked exactly as if some one had killed it by 

 stamping on its breast, and then nailed it to the 

 lady's temple, which was presumably of sufficient 

 solidity to bear the operation. I am not, I hope, a 

 morbidly squeamish person ; but the spectacle 

 sickened me. I presume that if I had presented 

 myself at the doors with a dead snake round my 

 neck, a collection of blackbeetles pinned to my 

 shirtfront, and a grouse in my hair, I should have 



been refused admission. Why, then, is a woman 

 to be allowed to commit such a public outrage? 

 I once, in Drury Lane, sat behind a matinee hat 

 decorated with the two wings of a seagull, artificially 

 reddened at the joints so as to produce an illusion 

 of being freshly plucked from a live bird. But 

 even that lady stopped short of the whole seagull. 

 Both ladies were evidently regarded by their 

 neighbours as ridiculous and vulgar ; but that is 

 hardly enough when the offence is one which pro- 

 duces a sensation of physical sickness in persons 

 of normal humane sensibility." 



The sight of an "osprey" in a woman's bonnet 

 or upon her head at opera or theatre does not 

 perhaps excite sickness in the normal person, but 

 to those who know its story it is an even more 

 suggestive sight than a whole bird — suggestive not 

 only of slaughter and cruelty, but of the amazing 

 ignorance or callousness of the wearer. The only 

 thing that can be urged on behalf of osprey- 

 wearing is that it is nowadays so thoroughly 

 democratic ; it proves that Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. 

 Prig, with " ospreys" sticking up in their bonnets, 

 can be just as stylish as Lady Araminta with a 

 huge brush nodding in her hair, and that Lady 

 Araminta knows no more and thinks no more on 

 matters of taste and humanity than Sarah Gamp 

 and Betsy Prig. 



Those who have watched the history of plume- 

 hunting will not be greatly surprised, though they 

 cannot but be greatly shocked, by the latest tragedy 

 for which it is responsible — the murder of one of 

 the wardens employed by the Audubon Societies 

 of the United States to protect the surviving 

 remnant of the Florida egrets. The warden, or 

 watcher, Guy Bradley, was a vigorous man, devoted 

 to his work, taking keen interest in the birds ; he 

 was shot and instantly killed, on July 8th, at 

 Oyster Key, Florida, while making an arrest at a 

 rookery. He had acted as warden for three years, 

 and had travelled thousands of miles in the launch 

 Attdnbon, in order to watch over the egret colony. 

 Only this year, writes Mr. Dutcher (Chairman of 

 the National Audubon Committee) in Bird Lore, 

 he said that he felt, while cruising among the 

 Keys, or patrolling the swamps, that his life 

 was in his hands, for the plume-hunters, whose 

 nefarious traffic he so seriously interfered with, 

 had sworn to take it. 



In the autumn and early winter months, when 

 new millinery is being selected, members and friends 

 of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 

 are urgently asked to make a special endeavour to 

 ensure that ladies of their acquaintance know the 

 truth about the plume trade. Above all, there 

 should be no chance given for a resuscitation of 



