4 
FOWLS OF THE AIR. 
ing relatives believed that tlie souls of their lost ones might be 
redeemed from purgatory bv the repetition of so many masses, 
paid for by the dozen, and that the penalty for their own sins 
might be liquidated by the purchase of indulgences. The Church 
knows now that sound knowledge is one of the most trustworthy 
handmaids of devotion. 
In this matter, then, of mercy to birds, knowledge is the surest 
remedy to the present practice, for there can be nothing more 
certain than this, that kind-hearted Englishwomen would never 
consent to deck themselves with borrowed plumes if they knew 
the irreparable mischief that has been wrought by the traffic which 
supplies them. Should any clergyman feel at a loss for a text 
from which to preach on this subject, let me respectfully refer him 
to Professor Newton’s admirable “Dictionary of Birds”; and 
therein, under the heading “ Extermination,” the following words : 
“ One other cause which threatens the existence of many species of birds, if it 
has not already produced the extermination of some, is the rage for wearing their 
feathers that now and again seizes civilized women, who take their ideas of dress 
from interested milliners of both sexes—persons who, having bought a large stock 
of what are known as ‘ plumes,’ proceed to make a profit by declaring them to be 
in fashion. The tender-hearted ladies who buy them little suspect that some or 
the large supplies required by the ‘ plume trade ’ are chiefly got by laying waste 
the homes of birds that breed gregariously, and that at their very breeding time. 
. . . No havoc in these islands approaches that which is perpetrated in some 
other countries, especially, it is surmised, in India, though there now contrary to 
law ; and the account of the ravages of a party of ‘ bird-plumers ’ at the breeding- 
stations on the coast of Florida, given by Mr. W. E. D. Scott, who in former 
years had seen them thronged by a peaceful population, is simply sickening. Did 
we not know what his feelings were, one might in reading his terrible narrative 
lose patience with him for not expressing more strongly his detestation of the 
barbarities he recounts. But his abstention is doubtless attributable to the fact 
that his narrative appears in a strictly scientific journal, where sentimental expres¬ 
sions would be out of place. All efforts to awaken the conscience of those who 
tacitly encourage this detestable devastation, and thereby share in its guilt, have 
hitherto failed ; and, unless laws to stop it be not only passed but enforced, it will 
go on till it ceases for want of victims—which, indeed, may happen very shortly. 
Then milliners will doubtless find that artificial feathers can be made, even as 
artificial flowers now are, and there will be a fine opening for the ingenious 
inventor. The pity is that he does not begin at once. ” 
Now the excuse for making suck a lengthy extract as the 
above is found in the fact that it, also, is taken from a “ strictly 
