Egret Farming in Sind. 
■twice in suuuinr ami fwicc in \\iiil,ci-; llif suiti r |iluiiia.t;c is com para - 
lively jKiiir, iii'atly liall' that of llu' wind r phiiiian'r. 
Th<' lnTcdirii; srasuii rcjtn iih-ih rs cai lx in Mardi and ' iintinnes 
up to the <ii(l of Sept I'nilxT. As s(jon as llir lireedinjr season hejjins 
the birds lii-ca.k up inio eonides ; Iwiijs are st i-e\\ n about tin' cage and 
■each pair ol' binls build a nest. The l)irds hatch tlndr own egns which 
arc jealously guariled, the male bird invariably taking the ]ilace of the 
mother bird u In ji she leaves lli<' m«t lor food or exercise. The ^•(nlng 
Arc. ])eruiitte(l to remain with thp parent birds for about a week, when 
they a,re reniovi'd ami reareil by hand : the eou[ile meanuhil'' laimnH'nca 
to brci'd again. 
The nnniber of liim-s the birds breed during this perio'l de{)ends 
on the degree of vitality of each pair ; eggs arc laid never h'ss than 
twice during the season, and sonndinn's as many as four or live times; 
the number of eggs each time varies from throe (o tive. It takes about 
12 months for the birds to reach maturity. 
The jihuni's are made up into small brushes, weighing about 
half a tola, to a tola, iind are taken to Sukkur and Karachi for sale., 
The prices realised range from 10 to Hs. 15 a tola : as each bird 
yields plumes seldom Ics.s than a tola in weight and 'often more during the 
year, it will bi- uuderstooil how lucrative a hobby Egret-farming has 
become. The Sukkur merchants export the feathers to t"a,lcutta, whence 
they are no doubt smuggled out of the country to the European markets, 
where ])rices i-anging as high as C 1 ."i ,in oun^e of feathers are realised. 
Xot only has a trade in the feathers been built up, but the 
birds themselves now command a high market value ; young birds thi'ee 
to four months old are sold at 10 to 12 jit Rs. 1(H); full grown birds 
command as much as l?s. 100 per jiair. 
The case with which the egrets arc bred and multiply, the fruit- 
ful croj, of plumes yielded by the birds ami the high jirii^es which the 
birds command are causing the imlustry to spread ver^- r.apidly in the 
neighbourhood of inland waters of the Provin<'e of Sinil, and it may be 
predicted with safety that in a 'few years, if the demand for the plumes 
continues, everj- fishing village in the interior of the country will have 
its Egret farm. Of course the trade in plumes of the birds of the Egret 
and Heron species has always existed in Sind, but the methods followed 
were formerly quite different, and the trade never attained such large 
dimensions. The practice followed about three dpcades ago was to snare 
the birds and destroy them for their plumag<'. On this being stopped, 
by executive orders of the then Commissioner in Sind Mr. (now Sir ) Evan 
James, the practice of snaring the birds and keeping them in captivity 
was resorted to ; but this led to the infamous practice of sticking up tha 
"birds' eyes with the object of preventing them from escaping. The latter 
practice is now rigorously suppressed by action under the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals' Act, and these onlers have proved an important 
factor in the inception of the system of egret farming described in this 
note. 
