such stuff for $5 each plume and take all I could get. I could have 
easily got and brought home over 500 such heron plumes, and, of 
course, I resolved to go back to Central America the very next year 
to hunt egret feathers. That is how I came to get into this busi¬ 
ness. The first two years I was hunting down in Yucatan and 
Honduras I cleared, over and above expenses and my living, $4,000, 
but that was when there was no one who competed with me in egret 
hunting, except a lot of lazy, stupid, drunken natives of Central 
America, and there were thousands of egrets more in those days 
than now. 
“ Where do I hunt now ? Off the west coast of Mexico, near 
Tepee and Sinaloa. I hunted for fifteen years in every part of 
Central America, and I had the natives work for me at times, so we 
made the birds mighty scarce down there before we got through. 
“ But everywhere in the regions I have been in and have ever 
heard about, a rapidly growing scarcity of egrets is evident. I am 
sure that in a dozen years more, if the fashion for feathers in 
women’s millinery prevails as now, there will be very few egrets left 
on the west coast of the whole western continent. I have talked 
with men who used to hunt egrets and herons in the marsh lands 
and bays of Peru, the United States of Colombia, and Ecuador, for 
the Paris and other European markets, and they tell me that the 
birds have been so thoroughly wiped out, down that way, that it is a 
loss of time and money to try to get a living by hunting egrets or 
herons. 
“ A millinery feather buyer from Paris, who came down to the 
city of Mexico last January, told me that he will never come out 
this way any more to buy feathers, for there are so few good plumes 
to be had that it was a losing proposition for him. He said that his 
firm in Paris was going to turn its attention to seeking its orna¬ 
mental feather supply in Africa, but that it was by no means certain 
it could get egret plumes in that part of the world. The house he 
was with in Paris used to buy $28,000 worth of egret feathers in 
Mexico, Central America, and Peru every year. So you can see 
how the business on this continent has diminished. 
“ Egret feathers are now sold entirely by weight. When I 
went into getting the feathers as a business I sold them at so much 
a plume and so much for smaller or discolored feathers. The 
Parisian milliners, who rule the ornamental feather market of the 
world, make and unmake all the fashions, and create demands in 
our line of business, began to buy egret and heron feathers by the 
ounce, and that practice was quickly followed by New York and 
Philadelphia ornamental feather dealers.. 
“ Soiled egret plumes and feathers are dyed and then used on 
millinery goods. The least discoloration of the milky whiteness of 
an egret plume will bring its value down from 30 to 50 per cent. 
When a feather buyer looks over fine feathers he uses a large 
magnifying glass, and scrutinizes each plume with all the nicety of 
a bird examining a flower. A background of white is always used 
with each plume, so as to make the faintest discoloration more 
perceptible. A good season’s harvest for one who is in the egret 
feather business on the scale I am, is about 55 ounces of plumes and 
130 ounces of small feathers. The best season I have ever had was 
