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expense to the planters," so says the counsel. The destruction of 

 the paddy crops by peacocks, parrots, birds of paradise, egrets, 

 hummingbirds, and seagulls the chief victims of the plume-hunter is, 

 however, hardly as great as we think as he estimates. But he says 

 not only do these (mostly insectivorous birds) damage the crops but 

 also acting as seed distributors, they distribute weeds and proscribed 

 plants more freely than useful ones. This is rank nonsense, the 

 troublesome weeds are almost invariably herbs with windborn seeds, 

 compositae, grasses, and sedges, etc. On the other hand, the re- 

 afforesting of waste ground by trees and shrubs, a very important 

 matter is almost invariably done for us by birds helped, it is true, by 

 bats. If we had no weeds or " proscribed plants," whatever those 

 may be, but what were dispersed by birds, we should hardly have 

 any weeding to do at all. The dispersal of tree seed to islands, or 

 again throughout our woods by birds is of the utmost value, and we 

 can well pardon the birds for bringing a few plants which we do not 

 want, as long as they bring larger quantities of the ones which we do. 

 But the humour of this argument lies in the fact that most of the birds 

 slaughtered by the plume-hunter are insectivorous-birds, such as 

 egrets and bee-eaters, great enemies to grass hoppers or birds living 

 in forests far from the plantations such as peacocks, birds of paradise, 

 fairy blue-birds, pheasants, etc. Of course there are birds which eat 

 a little fruit. Here for instance we have the bulbul, iPycnoxotus analis) 

 our commonest bird. He certainly does carry off some fruit which 

 often we do not wish to lose, but amply does he pay for this in this 

 destruction of grass-hoppers, locusts and other injurious insects. It 

 is, however, not this common class of bird that the plume-hunter ever 

 hunts. 



After discussing the question of cruelty, he goes on " neither is 

 there any waste for the natives having killed the birds, often to save 

 their paddy and wheat crops from destruction take the trouble to 

 skin them instead of only plucking them, and the skins are sold to 

 collectors of the export dealers whilst the flesh is eaten, for needless 

 to say in half starved India nothing is wasted." This picture is too 

 deliciously funny to require any comment, and serves well to show 

 the utter ignorance of the writer and how liard he is put to it to find 

 arguments for his defence. He gives the advantages of the death of 

 the bird as four: (I) a pest is removed (2' food is supplied to those 

 who badly need it, (3) an article of commercial value passing through 

 several hands is obtained, (4) those engaged in the feather trade are 

 benefitted. The last two advantages are practically one and the 

 same thing, and the first advantage is ne.i^atived by the fact that the 

 greater part of the birds destroyed are valued friends to agriculture 

 or perfectly harmless. While the sec(md is absolutely ridiculous. 

 How many of the myriads of egrets, birds of paradise, gulls, bee- 

 eaters, humming-birds, or even peacocks, against the flesh of which 

 the Malay at ka>t has a strong prejudice, are eaten by the bird- 

 hunters ? 



