26 
NATURE NOTES. 
AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY. 
[The Society for the Protection of Birds has just issued to the clergy 10,000 
copies of the following appeal on the wearing of feathers, to which we gladly give 
such additional circulation as its publication in our pages may afford. — Eu. N.N.'\ 
T a Committee Meeting of the Society for the Protection 
of Birds, held in London November 7, 1895, it was 
resolved that an appeal be made to the clergy and 
ministers of all denominations, to use their influence 
against a fashion which is notoriously out of harmony with our 
enlightened and humane age, and inimical to the best interests 
of a religion of mercy. 
It was at one time hoped that the promulgation of the ugly 
facts, in such a manner as to leave few or no persons in ignor- 
ance of them, would suflice to make such a fashion impossible 
in a Christian country. And it was doubtless in great part due 
to this movement, welcomed and warmly seconded by the press 
throughout the country, that, during the last two seasons, bird 
and feather wearing fell into something like disrepute. But the 
present autumn has brought bitter disillusionment. Many 
ladies have become avowedly indifferent as to the manner in 
which the decorations they affect are obtained, and, callous 
themselves, do not hesitate to outrage public opinion. Those 
who are engaged in the vile business of supplying the demand 
for feathers, are sending fresh orders to various points on our 
coasts, where sea-birds are known to gather, and to distant 
regions of the earth, to continue the work of devastation. More 
feathers, more wings and carcasses, are wanted. Drapers’ and 
milliners’ shops are once more stocked with the spoils of God’s 
loveliest and most defenceless creatures, slaughtered at woman’s 
behest ; while aigrettes formed of egret, or bird of paradise, 
plumes, or both, are seen in all places where women congregate, 
even in our churches. This matter deserves the serious and 
immediate attention of all ministers of religion. It is a distress- 
ing experience, not only to the writers of this appeal and the 
thousands of men and women for whom they are entitled to 
speak, but to numberless others, to sit at service, Sunday after 
Sunday, in the midst of a forest of waving feathers, with which 
so many heads in every congregation are decked. For the 
visible ornaments cannot be dissociated from the image of a 
desolated nature; nor, by any process of mental jugglery, can 
those who are aquainted with the facts and persist in following 
such a mode, be accounted guiltless of the criminal war of ex- 
termination which is being waged against bird-life. 
In the case of some species which are being extirpated, or 
made rare, for the sake of their feathers, the fashion may be 
simply characterised as stupid and selfish in the higest degree ; 
in other cases it is unutterably cruel. Thus, it is known that 
when the smaller gulls and sea-swallows, or terns, are shot for 
