146 
NATURE NOTES 
twenty years’ exposure of the cruelty of the practice, still, I 
regret to see, are more than ever in fashion as trimmings for 
ladies’ hats. It is quite time to speak out, and fix the blame 
where it is most assuredly due. After all that has been said and 
written, it is impossible for women to plead ignorance, and the 
only legitimate conclusion to which we can arrive is that they 
deliberately sacrifice all their finer feelings at the shrine of 
fashion, and care not what amount of suffering and wrong is 
inflicted provided their vanity is gratified.’ 
“ Love of dress and fashion is leading to the extinction, com- 
plete or partial, of all the most ornamental birds in every part of 
the world. 
“ The most notorious of all feather decorations is the 
^osprey’ worn on hats and bonnets. The millinery term ‘osprey’ 
must not be confused with the osprey of ornithologists, which 
is a sea eagle and has nothing whatever to do with the ‘ ospreys ’ 
seen in women’s headgear, the word in this case being merely a 
corruption of ‘ a spray.’ The so-called osprey of millinery is 
obtained from a heron or egret. There are about sixty kinds of 
herons throughout the world, all long-necked, long-legged, and 
long-winged birds ; but it is the great white heron and the little 
egret which are especially persecuted for fashion’s sake, because 
of the set of slender feathers which in the breeding season 
grow on the egret’s back, and droop over the sides and tail of the 
bird : these nuptial ornaments are worn by both male and female 
birds. 
“ I should like to direct attention to the story as told by Mr. 
Gilbert Pearson, at the World’s Congress on Ornithology, held 
at Chicago in 1897 : — 
“ ‘ I visited a large colony of herons on Horse Hummock 
(Central Florida), on April 27, 1888. Several hundred pairs 
were nesting there at the time. . . . While quite close to 
the breeding grounds I climbed a tall gum tree and was able, 
unobserved by the birds, to survey the scene at leisure. 
Three years later I again visited the heronry of Horse Hummock, 
found the old gum, and climbed among its branches, but the 
scene had changed. Not a heron was visible. The call had come 
from northern cities for greater quantities of heron plumes for 
millinery. The plume hunter had discovered the colony, and 
a few shattered nests were all that was left to tell of the once 
populous colony. The few surviving tenants, if there were any, 
had fled in terror to the recesses of wilder swamps. Wearily 
I descended from the tree, to find among the leaves and mould 
the crumbling bones of the slaughtered birds. 
“‘A few miles north of Waldo, in the flat pine region, our 
party came one day upon a little swamp where we had been 
told that herons bred in numbers. Upon approaching the 
place the screams of young birds reached our ears. The cause 
of this soon became apparent by the buzzing of green flies and 
the heaps of dead herons festering in the sun, with the back of 
