in 1882, when I had four good shooters at work for me among the 
lagoons of Nicaragua. I got about $3,900 that year clear, after 
seven months’ work. (=^24 15s. per week.) 
“ Only a very few feathers are available on the egret. On the 
heron there are three times as many, but heron feathers are worth 
less than half as much as egret feathers. The experienced feather 
buyers know the difference in the feathers at a glance, and many 
feet away, too. It is useless to mix heron and egret feathers 
together and try to palm them off on a buyer who knows his 
business. A full-grown egret will yield about one-fourth of an 
ounce of feathers and one-sixth of an ounce of plumes. None of the 
other feathers are touched, and it takes much experience for a hunter 
to know just what will be marketable. All the available egret 
plumes are on the bird’s back just at the back of the tail, but the 
heron has marketable feathers on both back and breast. We 
generally reckon that an egret that is got without damage to the 
feathers is worth about $3.20, and each heron $1.85. 
“You want to hear about how we hunt egrets and herons? 
Well, we have to live on the outskirts of civilization when we go 
after these birds. For days and nights at a time we make our 
homes in little row-boats, built canoe-shape for fast travelling, and 
we lived among the marshes and reeds of the lagoons and bays 
under a fierce semi-tropic sky. It is the hardest sort of life, and no 
one, however robust, could keep at it for more than a few months at 
a time. The miasma of the water and the poisonous atmosphere all 
about us at night, soon fills one’s blood with rheumatism and fevers. 
“We get our birds either at early evening or at the first break 
of day. We seldom get birds at evening and then the following 
dawn, for at the report of a gun every heron or egret in the region 
flies straight away, and will not come back to that particular spot 
for four or five days. Even then they return with wonderful 
caution. So we move from one part of a bay or lagoon to another 
at mid-day. when the birds are off feeding at the shoals along the 
shore. We get our crafts in position, one man in a boat, before four 
p.m., and conceal ourselves and our boats with reeds and foliage just 
as duck-hunters do. Along about five or six o’clock the birds come 
back to their nests and camping grounds. Then we watch our 
opportunity for shots, and, by long experience, I have 
learned perfectly when it comes. Just at the proper moment 
I will shoot, and in a fraction of a second my hired shooters 
will follow with their guns. Generally I can get three or four 
successful shots at the frightened birds before they are out of range, 
for they are so easily frightened that they are powerless of flight for 
a moment and make good targets of themselves. Sometimes we got 
as many as fifteen birds at one evening’s shooting, but more often 
the number is seven or eight. Years ago, when egrets and herons 
were very plentiful in Central America, I have killed nine birds in 
as many shots before they got out of my reach. When we have 
delivered our volleys, and the unharmed birds have flown away, v/e 
row about and gather the harvest. Extreme care must be exercised 
to get the feathers and plumes as free as possible from discolored 
water or the stain of weeds. Every week we have to throw away 
the carcass of an egret or heron because the feathers and plumes are 
bloodstained or twisted out of shape. 
