74 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
sin or Illinois that can protect them. 
But their strongest protection will be in 
public opinion. And we can help to form 
that Tell the story of the egret, it can’t 
be told too often. Tell how the plumes 
are worn only during the nesting season, 
how the birds will not leave their young, 
and so are easily killed; how they live 
in colonies and so are completely exter¬ 
minated. How from being one of the 
most common birds there are just a very 
few colonies left and these are carefully 
guarded, even their whereabouts being 
kept a secret though the law protects 
them now. 
Not long ago a lady called the atten¬ 
tion of a negligent policeman to the con¬ 
dition of an over-driven horse tied in 
front of a saloon on a very cold and stormy 
day. Above her flashing eyes waved 
the white plume, the sign of the crudest 
deed mankind has ever inflicted on his 
fellow creatures. Well, that hat must 
have been due to ignorance, or thought¬ 
lessness or vanity, and those are not so 
bad as cruelty—not quite. 
A Bird of Paradise. 
Nothing is more fashionable, just now, 
than Paradise-plumes, and few realize at 
what a cost they are obtained. In Alfred 
Russel Wallace’s “Malay Archipelago’' I 
find this passage: “In the mating season 
these birds indulge in sack a leto,ordanc- 
ina parties, in certain trees which have 
an°immense head of spreading branches, 
living a clear space for them to play and 
exhibit their plumes. On one of these 
trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged 
male birds assemble, raise up their wings, 
stretch out their necks, and elevate their 
exquisite plumes, keeping them in con¬ 
stant vibration. Between whiles they 
fl v across from branch to branch, in great 
excitement, so that the whole tree is 
filled with waving plumes in every variety 
of attitude and motion. The bird is of 
a rich coffee-brown color. The head and 
neck are of a pure straw-yellow above, 
and rich metallic green beneath; the long 
plumey tufts of golden-orange feathers 
spring from the sides beneath each wing, 
and when the bird is in repose are partly 
concealed by them. At the time of its 
excitement, however, the wings are raised 
verticallv over the back, the head is bent 
down and stretched out, and the long 
plumes are raised up and expanded till 
they form two magnificent golden fans 
striped with deep red at the base and 
fading off into the pale brown tint of the 
finely divided and softly waving points. 
The whole bird is overshadowed by them, 
the crouching body, yellow head and 
emerald green throat forming but the 
foundation and setting to the golden 
o-lory which waves above. In this atti¬ 
tude the Bird-of-paradise deserves its 
name and must he ranked as one of the 
most beautiful and most wonderful of 
living things. They are easily hunted. 
A man builds a little shelter of palm 
leaves among the branches of one of the 
chosen trees, and hides there before 
daylight, armed with a bow and with 
arrows which terminate in a round knob. 
A boy waits below. ■ At sunrise the birds 
assemble and begin to dance, the hunter 
shoots with his blunt arrow so as to stun 
the bird which falls without alarming the 
others, and is secured and killed by the 
bov, without its plumage being injured 
bv a drop of blood.’' Poor Paradise 
birds, speaking, on the heads of women 
only of Paradise lost! 
— Mrs. G. W. Peckham. 
That is a distant cawing 
Growing louder—coming nearer, 
Tells of crows returning inland 
From their winter on the marshes. 
—Frank Bolles. 
