BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



101 



charming vision need not have required a difficult 



journey through mosquito-haunted morasses, need 



not have been limited to the eye of the adventurous 



traveller. 



" Years ago such sights could be found all over 

 Florida and other Southern States. This is the 

 last pitiful remnant of hosts of innocent, exquisite 

 creatures slaughtered for a brutal, senseless — yes, 

 criminal millinery folly . . . Florida has awakened 

 to her loss, and imposes a very heavy penalty fine 

 for every one of these birds killed. Sincerely do I 

 wish that every one who slaughters, or causes to be 

 slaughtered, these animated bits of winged poetry, 

 may feel the full weight of the penalty of the statute 

 and of conscience. Such inaccessible tangles of 

 Southern Florida are the last places of refuge, the 

 last ditch of the struggle for existence to which 

 these splendid species have been driven." 



The writer goes on to narrate the typical story 

 of the plume-hunter Cuthbert, who " shot out " a 

 large rookery in Southern Florida. He found an 

 island of some two acres whose dense overgrowth 

 of mangrove trees was almost hidden by the snowy 

 plumage of vast numbers of nesting herons, egrets 

 and ibises, " a theme for the artist, a vision for the 

 poet." He left it a shambles, the ground heaped 

 with dead bodies, strips of skin and plumage torn 

 from their backs ; the nests swarming with flies 

 about the decaying corpses of starved nestlings. 

 The same thing is going on wherever the dealer 

 can pursue his prey and find his gold-mine in dead 

 birds' bodies ; and if, as in Mr. Watts' picture, 

 angels shudder over the memory of these shot-out 

 heronries, angels from another sphere must have 

 many a grin as they hear the complaisant milliner 

 assure her confiding customers that these wondrous 

 nuptial plumes — mutilated and marred and de- 

 graded though they be — are scraped out ot whale- 

 bone or manufactured out of wood ! 



Even the present penalty in the States is, Mr. 

 Job points out, not enough to cope with the enter- 

 prise of the plume trade. Other countries have no 

 Audubon Societies or wardens. 



" In these days," he adds, " there is arising a 

 many-sided and tremendous problem in regard to 

 saving the natural world from ignorant, short- 

 sighted, commercial vandalism. Every tree must 

 be cut down, every plant pulled up, every wild 

 thing slaughtered, every beautiful scene disfigured, 

 if only there is money to be made from it. What 

 remedies are there to propose ? " 



An educational campaign, he answers, to arouse 

 sympathetic interest in the lives of all harmless 

 wild creatures, a campaign carried on by teachers 

 and parents and clergy ; and, in the case of the 

 egrets, an agreement on the part of all nations 

 concerned to penalize the killing of the birds and 



the possession (including wearing) or exportation 

 of all such plumes. 



PLUME SALES. 



There were 296 packages Of "osprey" feathers 

 offered at the Feather Sale on October 10th, 1905, 

 mostly from India and Rangoon. Of birds-of- 

 paradise there were 2586 light plumes and 4692 

 various, and "a good demand" is reported. Other 

 bird skins on sale were hoopoes, seagulls, crested 

 pigeons, cocks-of-the-rock, etc., together with a 

 very large number of eagle and vulture quills. 



FARMERS AND BIRDS. 



The question of "Birds and Agriculture" was 

 brought forward at a meeting of the Central and 

 Associated Chambers of Agriculture, held in 

 London on October 31st, 1905, and a resolution 

 was passed : " That this Council is of opinion that 

 the depredations of birds are a serious loss to 

 growers of various products of the soil, and that 

 an official enquiry should be made as to what 

 means should be adopted to prevent such losses." 

 Mr. Ackers (Gloucester) said that in certain parts 

 of England there was a strong feeling that the 

 great increase in certain sorts of birds prevented 

 the birds from getting enough of their proper food 

 and caused them to prey upon the produce of the 

 farmer. The kinds of birds and the means of pre- 

 vention were matters of enquiry. Mr. Gardner 

 (Worcestershire) thought the request frivolous, as 

 the farmer had it in his own power to keep down 

 pests. 



Starlings and Chafers. 



Starlings almost invariably utilise holes for 

 breeding, and they have, both in Belgium and 

 Germany, been long supplied with artificial nest- 

 ing boxes where natural nesting-places are not 

 available. A box 10 to 12 inches in depth and 

 6 in. by 6 in. in cross-section, with a sloping 

 and slightly overhanging roof, and a hole 2 to 

 2\ in. in diameter near the top, with a perch 

 below, is commonly used for this purpose. Some 

 years ago, in a large and richly-stocked nursery 

 in Belgium, chafer beetles became so numerous as 

 to be a very serious infestation. After trying by 

 all known means to eradicate them, the proprietor 

 observed that starlings devoured large numbers 

 both of the larvse and the mature insects. Taking 

 a lesson from this, he erected about half a dozen 

 nesting-boxes on 15-feet poles, and as they were 

 immediately occupied by the birds he continued 

 to provide boxes until 125 were in use. The 

 result was that the chafer infestation grew gradually 

 less and was finally completely overcome. — Journal 

 of the Board of Agriculture, June, 1905. 



