218 
Letters , Extracts , Notices , fyc. 
setting off the silvery white plumage of a number of Egrets 
as they stalked abont in search of food. That, however, is 
now a thing of the past. Last year the natives got an 
inkling that money was to be made, and shot a good number 
of the birds. The prices realized astonished them, and this 
spring every man who could shoot at all was on the look¬ 
out. A terrible slaughter began on the arrival of the 
wretched Egrets, and continued, until from Suey Kao, 70 
miles up river, to Iling hua, some 60 miles S. of Foochow, 
the country may be said to have been swept clean. 
I will give you one or two cases only, of all the sickening 
details told of the massacre. 
A u heronry 5 ’ of Heroclias yarzetta , which used in summer 
to be a beautiful sight from the river, with the white plumage 
of the birds showing out in strong contrast to the dark 
green foliage of the two huge trees in which their nests 
were placed, has been entirely depopulated. 
Further down river was a “ heronry ” of H. yarzetta 
with a sprinkling of H. eulophotes in a village. The local 
mandarin put up notices warning people against molesting 
the birds. The “ shooting-men,” however, found out that 
the birds flew in a certain line down a narrow valley to their 
feeding-grounds. Selecting an afternoon with a stiff breeze 
that not only deadened the reports of the guns, but made 
the birds fly low, a party of five or six stationed themselves 
at the end of the valley, and shot down the whole colony. 
One of these men told me that the villagers were very angry 
because of the bad smell that arose from the decayiny bodies 
of the nestlings, 
A native caught lurking about with a gun near a “ heronry ” 
in the suburbs of the city w r as severely bambooed and had 
his gun confiscated by the mandarins. I asked the man 
who told me whether that would protect the birds. He said 
“ No, we wait for them outside ; ” and added, with a chuckle, 
u they must come out to feed sometimes.” 
Of course here we cannot do anything in the matter, and 
it is doubtful whether the new Game Preservation Society 
started in Shanghai to prevent the export of Pheasants 5 skins, 
