SELBORNIANA 143 
Mrs. F. E. Lemon, F.Z.S., Hon. Sec. Society for the Pro- 
tection of Birds, then read the following paper : — 
“The subject of which I have been asked to treat is Dress 
in relation to Animal Life. I do not think there is any 
necessity to enter into details regarding the proper treatment 
which should be accorded to those animals which provide us 
with woollen, silken, or leathern goods. These materials are 
mostly obtained from domesticated animals, who in Great 
Britain, as well as in many other countries, are now protected 
by law. 
“ I regret that I am not competent to deal with the impor- 
tant question of the protection of which many fur-bearing 
animals stand in need, and I hope that other speakers will 
deal with this subject. Undoubtedly, terrible abuses exist : 
many beautiful and useful animals are becoming extinct because 
they are hunted and killed without due regard to the breeding 
season, and we know that indescribable cruelties have been 
practised in the killing and skinning of the fur-bearing seals, 
and in the procuring of certain kinds of astrachan, which is 
the skin of the unborn lamb. 
“ Surely it behoves all right-minded women who would array 
themselves in these costly materials to make strict enquiry as 
to the way in which the material is obtained. Until it has 
been undeniably proved that before being skinned the seal 
has been swiftly and mercifully killed, and that the hunting is 
not carried on during the breeding season, we should do well 
to avoid the use of that fur. If all women would thus pro- 
test, the hunters would perforce have to mend their methods. 
The same course of action would also doubtless bring about 
more humane treatment of the other creatures whose skins are 
obtained that we may be covered and kept warm. 
“ With these brief allusions T now turn to my special subject, 
that of Bird Protection ; and here I shall speak with no 
uncertain sound, for what I shall say is based on positive 
knowledge laboriously gathered during many years devoted to 
the question. 
“ Unfortunately it is through women and their weak sub- 
mission to the dictates of what is known as Fashion that much 
of the wholesale and disastrous slaughter of bird life has taken 
place. The question is not a sentimental one, it is a serious 
and economic one. Game-keepers and others, in ignorance, 
and from desire of some immediate pecuniary gain, have 
destroyed owls and kestrels to an alarming extent, and in 
consequence rats, mice, and voles unmolested are playing 
terrible havoc in the fields and in the farmyard. But judging 
by the owls’ and kestrels’ feathers that women display on their 
hats, and the numbers of these birds one has seen on their 
way from the London Docks to the plumassiers, women cannot 
be held guiltless in the matter of the destruction of these most 
useful and necessary birds. The late Lord Lilford, then Presi- 
