222 Organic Synthesis and its Social Bearings, [April, 
personal decoration, as fashion now sanctions. This folly, 
for we can give it no milder name, has little effeCt upon our 
native species, though we have heard, on apparently good 
authority, that a lady once wore at a ball a dress trimmed 
with the skins of a multitude of redbreasts. But we greatly 
fear that not a few rare and magnificent natives of tropical 
regions are doomed to extirpation in virtue of this very 
whim. We should recommend a law prohibiting, under 
very stringent penalties, the use of any humming-bird, sun- 
bird, trogon, or bird of Paradise, or any part or appendage 
of such bird, as ornaments or accessories of human attire, 
or their sale by any plumassier or milliner. Such an enact- 
ment would not be, as some persons imagine, a “ sumptuary 
law, since its objeCt would be to restridt not luxury, but the 
wanton slaughter of beautiful, harmless, and in many cases 
useful creatures. Wb do not think that there is any present 
hope of such a measure being even introduced into Parlia- 
ment, but it is our duty to point out its imperative necessity. 
II. ORGANIC SYNTHESIS AND ITS SOCIAL 
BEARINGS. 
M ATURE, if we may use the expression, places before 
man not a few dilemmas which are scarcely perceived 
in his earlier career, but which are painfully felt in 
proportion as population thickens and civilisation advances. 
Of these, one of the foremost relates to the prime necessa- 
ries of life and their production. If bread, meat, butter, 
vegetables are to be had at a low price, the farmer and the 
grazier complain that their business is unremunerative, and 
can only be carried on at a loss. . If the same articles are 
dear, the trading and manufacturing classes suffer. Hence 
we find that a season of general plenty is not regarded by the 
cultivator of the soil as an unmixed blessing. If his crops 
are greatly increased their money-value will fall in propor- 
tion and the main result of the bountiful harvest will be, 
as far as the farmer is concerned, more work for the same 
profit. Hence we find, in various departments of the food- 
