592 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 9, 1912 
The White Egrets. 
BY T. GILBERT PEARSON, SECRETARY THE NATIONAL 
■ ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES. 
The most beautiful, and one of the most 
popular millinery decorations with civilized 
women, is that dainty and exquisitely formed 
feather known as the “aigrette” in America, and 
the “osprey” in Europe. 
It is a sad fact that this personal decoration, 
so much esteemed by our modishly dressed 
women, is procurable only by inflicting unspeak¬ 
able agonies on some of the most beautiful crea¬ 
tures which inhabit the earth. 
In the early days of the Audubon movement, 
its leaders raised their hands in protest against 
the traffic in these feathers. Their cry has been 
taken up by many other organizations and so¬ 
cieties interested in various phases of humane 
work. To-day it seems incredible that there 
should be any well-read person in the United 
States who is not aware of the fact that the 
“aigrette” is the nuptial plume worn by the white 
egret at the nesting-time of the year, to procure 
which it is necessary to shoot the birds, which 
means that the young, in turn, are left to slowly 
die of starvation. 
In fighting the traffic in these feathers, the 
Audubon Societies have published and distributed 
millions of pages of literature bearing on the 
subject; have contributed thousands of columns 
of matter to the public press, and their speakers 
have addressed audiences aggregating hundreds 
of thousands of hearers, in all of which there 
have been set forth the unanswerable facts rela¬ 
tive to the methods of procuring the material for 
this heartless trade. 
In their efforts to safeguard the interests of 
these birds, agents have been sent to those regions 
still inhabited by the white egrets, and their nest¬ 
ing colonies located. Wardens have been em¬ 
ployed to remain in the fever-infested swamps 
to guard the localities which the birds had 
chosen for their rookeries. Frequently, these 
men have had to contend with unscrupulous 
feather-gatherers. Three Audubon wardens have 
been killed, and at least two others probably 
saved their lives only by promptly returning the 
rifle fire of their would-be assassins. 
Yet, despite all our efforts, the birds have 
continually become scarcer, and, in fact, so de¬ 
pleted are their numbers to-day that we did not 
know of over fifteen colonies in the United 
States in the summer of 1911. 
In these ancestral nesting-places still gather 
a few thousand birds, the pitiful remnant of the 
great flocks which inhabited our Southern States 
a few decades ago. These, this association is ex¬ 
erting every possible effort to protect. 
In the summer of 1906, the writer spent five 
weeks on the Gulf Coast of Florida, covering the 
territory between Tampa and Key West. About 
twenty-five colonies of water-birds were ex¬ 
amined, and innumerable feeding-grounds of 
herons were visited. In all this stretch of terri¬ 
tory—two hundred miles in length—less than a 
dozen white egrets were found; whereas, in 
the same region eleven years before, the writer 
had found the birds plentiful, and in places very 
abundant. 
There are two species of plume-bearing white 
egrets in America. The large one (Herodias 
egreita) is a beautiful long-legged, long-necked 
bird, standing between three and four feet in 
height, and the snowy heron (Egretta candidis- 
sima), of much shorter stature. From the back 
of the former are obtained the long, straight 
plumes, and from the latter are taken the short, 
curved ones, known to the trade as the “cross 
aigrette.” Both species are normally found in the 
same territory and under very similar conditions. 
They formerly bred from Oregon and New York 
on the north, south through Mexico and the north¬ 
ern Central America to Patagonia and Chile. Their 
range, however, in the United States has been 
greatly restricted. One small colony is reported 
to be still in existence in Eastern Oregon, and it 
is just possible that there are one or more groups 
of birds in Southern California. The most 
northern nesting-place on the Atlantic Coast is in 
North Carolina, down close to the southern 
boundary line. Large areas in Florida, where, in 
years gone by, the birds were more abundant than 
in any other place in the United States, are now 
devoid of either species, except now and then 
a rare straggler. After the nesting season, a 
few egrets wander northward. Thus, in the 
summer of 1911, several were seen in Massa¬ 
chusetts, some of them being photographed by 
Dr. Geo. W. Field, of Boston. If the colonies 
along the south Atlantic Coast can be guarded 
and the traffic in plumes suppressed, there seems 
every reason to believe that the birds will again 
extend their natural breeding range northward, 
until they once more inhabit suitable regions in 
the neighborhood of New York. 
Egrets feed chiefly in the rice fields, and 
about the marshy borders of ponds, lakes and 
streams. When the period of nidification arrives, 
they usually retire to the depths of more or less 
inaccessible swamps, and there, in company with 
other herons, assemble to build their nests on 
the horizontal limbs of the cypress or willow 
trees. 
The eggs range from three to five in number. 
These are blue in color, and are laid on a frail 
platform of sticks and twigs which the birds 
gather in the neighborhood. For food, frogs, 
snakes, fish and other aquatic forms of life, are 
ready at hand. 
Egrets are not regarded as of very great eco¬ 
nomic value as destroyers of obnoxious insects. 
This, however, is no reason why they do not de¬ 
serve our protection. The pure, glossy white¬ 
ness of their plumage and the elegance of their 
form and movement are sufficient reasons for 
preserving these living objects of statuary of the 
southern marshes, even as civilized man pre¬ 
serves in the home and in the forum the marble 
statues, carved by the hands of inspired artists. 
The Audubon workers, by constant agitation 
and an immense amount of labor, have succeeded 
in securing the passage of laws which prohibit the 
sale of these birds in the States of New York, 
New Jersey, Louisiana, Ohio, Missouri, Massa¬ 
chusetts, Oregon and California. This is only a 
beginning in the line of legislation for suppress¬ 
ing the traffic in their feathers, for the sale still 
goes on in every city of any size in the other 
States of the Union. 
Even where the trade in aigrettes is now de¬ 
clared to be illegal, there are frequent evidences 
of violation of the law; for so valuable and so 
alluring are the profits, that many annually run 
the risk of prosecution in order to deal in the 
feathers. The price of aigrettes has gone up 
and up, until to-day prime feathers are actually 
worth more than twice their weight in gold. 
As the birds have become exterminated in 
the United States, the millinery feather agents 
have turned their attention to the tierra caliente 
of Mexico, and the rivers of South America. 
Here, in the swamps of the hot countries, the 
feather-gatherers are to be found every year. It 
SNOWY EGRETS. 
Three ages of a popular millinery decoration. 
