1G 
BY TIIE WAYSIDE 
(Continued from page 11) 
plumes only during the mating and nest¬ 
ing season. After the period when they 
are employed in earing for their young 
it is found that tlie plumes are virtually 
of no commercial value, because of tlie 
worn and frayeu condition to wmcn inej 
nave oeen reuuceu. it is me custom in 
Venezuela to snoot tlie birus while me 
young are m me nests, a lew f earners 
of tne large wnue neron (American 
Jmgret) known as tne yarza uianoa can be 
picked up of a morning about tneir 
breeding places, but tnese are of small 
value ana are known as “'dead fearn¬ 
ers. Iliey are worth locally not over 
$o.u(J an ounce, while the feathers taken 
trom the bird, known as live feathers, 
are worth $15.00 an ounce. 
iviy work led me into every paid' oi 
V enezuela and Colombia where these 
birds are to be found and i have never 
yet found or heard tell of any garzeros 
that were guarded for the purpose of 
simply gathering the feathers from the 
ground. No such a condition exists in 
Venezuela. The story is absolutely 
without foundation in my opinion and 
has simply been put forward for com¬ 
mercial purposes. The natives of the 
country, who do virtually all of the 
hunting for feathers, are not provident 
in their nature and their practices are 
of a most cruel and brutal nature. I 
have seen them frequently pull the 
plumes from wounded birds, leaving the 
crippled birds to die of starvation, un¬ 
able to respond to the cries of their 
young in the nests above which were 
calling fer food. I have known these 
people to tie and prop up wounded 
egrets on the marsh where they would 
attract the attention of other birds fly¬ 
ing by. These decoys they keep in this 
position until they die of their wounds 
or from the attacks of insects. I have 
seen the terrible red ants of the country 
actually eating out the eyes of these 
wounaea, helpless birds that were tied 
up by the plume hunters. 1 could write 
you many pages of the horrors practiced 
in gathering aigrette feathers in Vene¬ 
zuela by the natives for the milinery 
trade of Paris and New York. 
To illustrate the comparatively small 
number of dead feathers which are col¬ 
lected, I will mention that in one year 1 
and my associates shipped to New York 
eighty pounds of the plumes of the large 
heron and twelve pounds of the little 
recurved plumes of the snowy heron. In 
this whole lot there were not over five 
pounds of plumes that had been gathered 
from the ground—and these were of little 
value. The plume birds have been nearly 
exterminated in the United States 
and Mexico, and the same condition of 
affairs will soon exist in tropical Amer¬ 
ica. This extermination will come about 
because of the fact that the young are 
left to starve in the nest when the old 
birds are killed, any other statements 
made by interested parties to the con¬ 
tra rv not w it h sta n d in g. 
T am so incensed at the ridiculouslv 
absurd and misleading stories that are 
being published on this question that 1 
want to give you this letter, and, before 
delivering it to you shall take oath to its 
truthfulness. 
Yours very truly, 
(Signed) A. H. Meyer. 
State of New York 
City and County of New York 
I. A. II. Meyer, being duly sworn, de¬ 
pose and state that I know of my own 
knowledge that the contents of the fore¬ 
going letter are true and correct in every 
respect. 
(Signed) A. H. Meyer 
Sworn to before me this 19tli 
(Seal) day of April, 1911. 
(Signed) S. J. Gensler, 
Notarv Public, New York Co. 
•' 7 
