OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN AND ILLINOIS 
One Year 25 Cents 
AUDUBON SOCIETIES. 
Entered as ^“t 0 " _*?*•*» •? *PP<«fn. Wisconsin 
Single Copy 5 Cents 
VOL. XI. 
^ 6 . 1904. at Appleton, Wis.. under the act of Con 
APRIL 1909. 
gress of Mar, 3 79 . 
No. 10 
THE AMERICAN EGRET. 
Tourists who went to Florida thirty birds is ;ln unpleasant subject Tt ; 
years ago have told me of prairies white blot on Florida’s history VV 'V 
with Egrets of bushy islands glistening manded from the bird its weddine nb * 
IS: r N — and man has supplied the^ernaiKl^ ^Tht 
may look for miles 
along a lake shon 
and perhaps in th< 
distance see a soli¬ 
tary Egret, which 
as you approach 
with a frightened 
squawk takes wing 
a rifle-shot away. 
The rapid exter¬ 
mination of these 
plume- b e a ring 
birds is startling 
evidence of man’s 
power in the ani¬ 
mal world. At his 
word a species is 
almost immedi¬ 
ately wiped out of 
existence. I have 
heard a ‘‘plume- 
hunter” boast of 
killing three hun- 
dred Herons in a 
‘‘rookery” in one 
, -inn. Hfli liS li 
afternoon. Another proudly stated that 
he and his companions had killed one 
hundred and thirty thousand birds— 
Herons, Egrets and Terns,—during one 
winter. But the destruction of these 
The White Badge ok Cruelty 
-Florida Heroni 
have gone, arm 
now he is pursu 
ing the helpless 
birds to the utter¬ 
most parts of tl e 
earth. Mercilessly 
they a re shot down 
at their roosts or 
nesting grounds, 
the coveted feath¬ 
ers are stripped 
from their backs, 
the carcasses are 
left to rot, while 
the young in the 
nest above are 
starving. But 
then, you know, 
the little bunch of 
aigrettes in yon- 
fler jaunty bonnet 
s “so pretty,” “so 
becoming! " 
Chapman. 
I he Audubon Society of the state o 
New York is trying to get a bill passec 
through their legislature whiehwill ren¬ 
der the sale of Egrets unlawful. It is 
doubtful it we have any law in Wiseon- 
