3 
I leave these figures to speak for themselves ; but I wish to remind 
your readers that “ plumes,” to be of value, must be taken from the 
birds just before, or during the breeding-season, and those of the birds 
of paradise from the males only, the spoils of comparatively few 
females coming into the market. How many skins were included in 
the “ packages ” I have no means of ascertaining; but it is clear that 
at the lowest computation over 35,000 birds of paradise must have 
been killed as they were about to breed, and I would ask those of 
your readers who have experience of the rearing of game what they 
know would be the effect of killing 35,000 pheasants in this country 
in the course of next month and April. Yet we may be sure that 
pheasants are far more numerous in England than birds of paradise 
are in Hew Guinea and the neighbouring islands. 
As to the egrets, it is difficult to calculate the amount of slaughter, 
seeing that the “packages ” of “ospreys” are said to vary in weight 
from 12 oz. to 42 oz., and I have not been furnished with the 
aggregate. A case is none the better for being overstated, but here 
the lowest weight—on a calculation 1 before published in your 
columns, the accuracy of which, so far as I know, remains undisputed 
—would signify 86,032 dead birds. Suppose the average to be 15 oz., 
we should have a mortality of 107,560. How it is a fact known to 
everyone who will take the trouble to inquire, that all these egrets 
are shot down at their breeding places while they are building their 
nests or rearing their young, and that if so be that the latter are 
hatched, they die of hunger on their parents’ death, the breeding- 
places being absolutely devastated by the “ plume hunters.” The 
personal experience on this point of Mr. W. E. D. Scott, a competent 
and unimpassioned witness, has never been, and cannot be, refuted 
as regards the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Horth America, where the 
settlements of the birds are all but extinguished; but the same thing 
goes on all over the world wherever egrets are found in numbers 
sufficient to make their destruction a profitable enterprise. More¬ 
over, no protective law can be of the least use in staying the slaughter, 
for there is no local authority to enforce it, any more than there is to 
prevent the massacre of birds of paradise in the Papuan Islands. 
Yet I believe that a simple and very potent check might be 
exercised nearer home. Once make the enterprise unprofitable and 
the birds would have comparative peace. Two little words to the 
proper official, from the highest Personage in the land, to the effect 
that after a certain day “ no plumes ” would be admissible at Court 
(except when forming part of the regimentals of certain distinguished 
corps*), and the whole aspect of the matter would be changed. In the 
* [Note.— On June 23rd, 1898, the following notice was given in the House of Commons by 
Sir John Lubbock, who is the President of the Selborne Society: “To ask the Under 
Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the so-called osprey feathers worn as 
plumes by certain regiments are only developed by and stripped from the birds during the 
breeding season; that the destruction of the old birds involves the starvation of the young 
ones; and if he will consider the desirability of abandoning the use of a decoration which 
involves the slaughter of birds under circumstances now shown to involve such cruelty.” In 
reply Mr. Brodrick said : “ Orders have been given that plumes composed otherwise than of 
so-called osprey feathers shall be prepared with a view of obtaining the sanction of Her 
Majesty to the abolition of the osprey plumes worn by the commissioned officers in certain 
regiments. The selection of a satisfactory substitute is difficult, and some delay may occur in 
effecting the change.” 
In the House of Commons, on March 6, 1899, Sir J. Lubbock asked the Under Secretary of 
State for War whether the use of aigrettes in the army had been abandoned in accordance with 
the promise given last Session. Mr. Wyndham replied that a new plume not made from the 
feathers of the egret has been approved.— Editok.] 
