Natural Science News. 



VOL. I ALBION, N. Y., NOVEMBEB 2, 1895. No. 40 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various brauehes of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. 



Price, One Dollar a Year. 



To Foreign Countries In .the Universal Postal 

 Union, $1.50, equal to 6 s., or 6 marks, or 8 francs. 

 Single copies, 5 cents each. 



Subscriptions can begin with aDy number. 



Remittances should be made by Draft, Express 

 or Post Office Money Order, or Registered Letter. 

 Unused U. S. Postage stamps of any denomina- 

 tion will be accepted for fractional parts of a dol- 

 lar. Make Money Orders and Drafts payable, 

 and address all subscriptions and communica- 

 tions to FRANK li. IATTIN, 

 Albion, Orleans Co., N. Y, 



Entered at Albion P. O. as 2nd class mail matter 



Egret Plumes. 



No birds are more beautifully- 

 decorated than Egrets. Their 

 name is a corruption of the French 

 word aigrette, and is particularly 

 applied to those species of Herons 

 which are ornamented with tufts 

 of loose-webbed plumes growing 

 from the head, the sides of the 

 neck, or the back. The Egrets 

 par excellence are a group of snowy- 

 white Herons, of which our own 

 little White Heron or Snowy Egret 

 of the South is a typical represen- 

 tative. Indeed, it is this species 

 that forms the chief source of the 

 most delicate and most coveted of 

 the plumes so extensively used for 

 decorative purposes in millinery, 

 nor is it surprising that such grace- 

 ful objects should be sought as an 

 article of ornament. But those 

 who wear them are rarely aware 

 of the cruelty their use occasions or 

 the wholesale destruction of inno- 

 cent bird-life which is required to 

 maintain the supply. The beauti- 

 ful plumes are the nuptial orna- 

 ments of the birds and are worn 

 only during the breeding season, 

 when they are common to both 

 sexes. Hence, in order to secure 

 them, the birds must be killed dur- 

 ing the nesting period; and if we 

 should tell the cruelty and havoc 

 to the Egret colonies which attend 

 the slaughter of these beautiful 

 creatures, any woman of humane 

 feeling and refinement must look 

 withihorror upon the wearing of 

 ornaments obtained through such 

 a sacrifice of life. 



Formerly the Egret species were 

 abundant from the Middle States 



southward, particularly in the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States, in 

 Central and South America, and as 

 far South as the Argentine Repub- 

 lic. 



Associated with the little white 

 Egret, and having about the same 

 range, is a larger species, the great 

 white Egret, also pure white and 

 beautifully plumed. In this spe- 

 cies the occipital plumes are lack- 

 ing, but the plumes from the back 

 are long and abundant and form a 

 magnificent drooping train. 



Fifteen years ago these beauti- 

 ful birds were in almost undisturb- 

 ed possession of the swamps and 

 swampy islands of southern Flori- 

 da, where, in large rookeries of 

 hundreds and even thousands of 

 pairs, they reared their young in 

 safety. Shortly after this date 

 their haunts were invaded by the 

 murderous plume-hunter, and as 

 colony after colony became depop- 

 ulated in the more accessible parts 

 of their haunts, they were pursued 

 into the remotest bayous of the in- 

 terior. Thus an ornithologist of 

 note, writing in 1890 of a recent 

 trip to the keys and everglades of 

 South Florida, says: "The 'plume 

 hunter' is in greater numbers and 

 more active than ever in South 

 Florida, and there are absolutely 

 no Heron rookeries on the salt water 

 bayous or on the outlying keys of 

 the Gulf coast of Florida from An- 

 clote Keys to Cape Sable."* During 

 weeks spent in these regions scarce- 

 ly an Egret was seen, where ten 

 years before their snowy-white 

 plumage and graceful forms were 

 a conspicuous feature of the land- 

 scape. 



For several years Fort Myers 

 was the seat of the traffic. Local 

 traders were ready to pay high 

 cash prices, not only for Egret 

 plumes, but for all bird skins that 

 could be utilized for millinery pur- 

 poses. In winter the region was 

 visited by buyers from the North, 

 "provided to equip hunters with 

 breech-loaders, ammunition, and 

 the most approved and latest de- 

 vices for carrying on the warfare." 

 It is notorious that one man from 

 New York employed regularly for 

 years from forty to sixty gunners 

 in this murderous work. It is lit- 

 tle wonder, then, that the beauti- 

 ful Egrets and hosts of other less 

 attractive birds were almost exter- 

 minated in South Florida, or that 



* W. E. D. Scott, in The Auk, 1890, vol. vii., 

 p. 221. 



the hunters and milliners' agents 

 were compelled to seek new fields 

 for the prosecution of the nefari- 

 ous business in Louisiana, Texas, 

 eastern Mexico, and the northern 

 portions of South America. 



But the slaughter of these beau- 

 tiful creatures and the rapid exter- 

 mination of species after species of 

 the most attractive and harmless 

 forms of bird life are by no means 

 the worst feature of this barbarious 

 business. As we have said, the 

 much-coveted plumes are worn by 

 the birds only during the nesting 

 season, when they are assembled 

 in colonies to rear their young; but 

 we must add that at this season 

 these usually wary birds are ap- 

 proached with comparative ease. 

 Affection for their young renders 

 them less watchful for their own 

 safety, and when their nesting 

 haunts are invaded they fall an 

 easy prey to the hunter, who shoots 

 them indiscriminately as long' as a 

 bird remains. Says the writer al- 

 ready quoted: "They are hunted, 

 just during the period of the full 

 perfection of the plumes, with such 

 unremitting perseverance by the 

 cruel plume-hunters that scarcely 

 a rookery, no matter how small, es- 

 capes." At the larger rookeries it 

 was not uncommon for a single 

 hunter to kill a hundred Egrets in 

 a day, for days in succession. The 

 hunter cunningly secretes himself 

 and uses a small rifle, which makes 

 little noise and does not greatly 

 alarm the birds; and the murder- 

 ous work is continued till the few 

 birds which remain are no longer 

 worth the time it would take to se- 

 cure them. The birds that are 

 left alive soon desert the region; 

 and where there was once a vast 

 rookery so covered with Egrets 

 "as to look from a distance," as 

 one hunter expressed it, "as if a 

 big white sheet had been thrown 

 over the mangroves" not a living 

 bird remains. 



The dead birds are gathered up 

 by the hunter, the portions of the 

 skins containing the plumes are 

 stripped off, and the bodies are 

 left in heaps to putrefy or become 

 the food of Buzzards and other 

 birds and beasts of prey. The 

 trees are still full of nests, some 

 with unhatched eggs, but many 

 contained young, doomed to a lin- 

 gering death from starvation. An 

 eye-witness of one of these scenes 

 says of an island that had thus 

 been desolated only a few days be- 



