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Nature Notes: 
THE SELBORNE SOCIETT'S MAGAZINE, 
No. 222. 
JUNE, 1908. VoL. XIX. 
IMPORTATION OF PLUMAGE PROHIBITION 
BILL. 
It has long been the wish of the Council of the Selborne 
Society to take some decided steps towards checking the whole- 
sale destruction of the most beautiful birds of the world for 
millinery purposes. Much can be done — something, perhaps, 
has been done — by persuasion ; but legislative methods alone 
can deal with wholesale trade methods. Our President, there- 
fore, after consulting representatives of kindred societies, has 
introduced into the House of Lords a Bill intituled “ An Act to 
Prohibit the Importation of the Plumage and Skins of Wild 
Birds,” and it has been read a second time and referred to a 
Select Committee. It is prefaced by the following memor- 
andum : — 
“ The object of this Act is to check the wanton and whole- 
sale destruction of birds which is being carried on everywhere 
throughout the British Empire, and in all parts of the world, 
without regard to the agricultural, educational, and aesthetic 
value of birds. As a proof of the extent of the destruction that 
at present goes on, and which is threatening the extinction of 
some of the most beautiful species, it may be mentioned that 
at the plume auctions held in London during the last six months 
of 1907 there were catalogued 19,742 skins of the birds of 
paradise, 1,411 packages of the nesting plumes of the white 
heron (representing the feathers of nearly 115,000 birds), besides 
immense numbers of the feathers and skins of almost every 
known species of ornamental plumaged bird. At the June sale, 
held at the Commercial Sale Rooms, 1,386 crowned pigeons’ 
heads were sold, while among miscellaneous bird-skins one firm 
of auctioneers alone catalogued over 20,000 kingfishers. A 
deplorable feature of recent sales is the offer of large numbers 
of lyre birds’ tails and of albatross quills. The constant repeti- 
tion of such figures as the above — and these plume sales take 
