532 
FOREST AND STREAM 
November, 1917 
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES, FOUNDED BY FOREST AND 
STREAM, HAVE SUCCEEDED IN PROTECTING MANY BIRDS FROM EXTERMINATION 
. By WALT F. McMAHQN 
W HEN the National Association of 
Audubon Societies entered the 
field of conservation in 1901 the 
day of the plume-hunter was doomed. For 
years a great army of men had been strip¬ 
ping our country of its bird-life to satisfy 
the demands of the millinery trade. No 
species was safe from their guns. The 
graceful gulls and terns, the dainty hum¬ 
mingbirds and the filthy carrion-eating 
vultures alike were slaughtered by thou¬ 
sands and stripped of their feathers to be 
used in trimming fashionable hats. 
The most striking case of all was the 
killing of the egrets, the beautiful snow 
white herons shown in the accompanying 
photographs. Two species of these birds 
were sought by the hunters. The larger, 
at that time called the American Egret, 
stands about three feet in height and bears 
about fifty straight plumes about a foot in 
length. The Snowy Egret is a much 
smaller bird with short fine plumes that 
are slightly recurved at the tips. These 
are known to the millinery trade as “cross 
aigrettes,” to distinguish them from the 
“long whites.” 
The plumes, or “aigrettes,” grow from 
the backs of the adult birds and are worn 
only during the breeding season. At this 
time, when the female is incubating the 
eggs or brooding her young, her plumes 
are in their finest condition. For this rea¬ 
son, each bunch of aigrettes worn on a 
woman's hat probably means that a mother 
egret has been murdered and her three or 
four baby herons have been left to starve 
to death in the nest. The aigrettes which 
were at one time worn extensively have well 
been named “The White Badge of Cruelty.” 
T HE destruction of these splendid birds 
was at¬ 
tended by 
the most dis¬ 
gusting cruelty 
and caused 
much horrible 
misery and suf- 
f e r i n g. The 
plume - hunters 
visited the 
nesting - colo¬ 
nies, or “ropk- 
eries,” and shot 
the birds as 
they flew to 
and from their 
feeding- 
grounds, bring¬ 
ing food for 
their young. 
The patch of 
skin producing 
the long plumes 
was stripped 
from the bird’s 
back entire and 
after being 
cured and the bloodstains washed off the 
“scalp” was ready for shipment. Of 
course, the class of men and boys engaged 
ters to Philadelphia, where they were again 
routed and put out of business by the 
Pennsylvania Anti-plumage Law, also pre¬ 
sented by the Audubon Societies. By co¬ 
operating with the United States Bureau 
of Biological Survey and with various 
State societies similar regulations have 
been fought to a successful finish in Ver¬ 
mont, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Iowa, 
Michigan, Louisiana, California, Oregon 
and Washington. 
B Y continually fighting, the greater part 
of this traffic has been stamped out. 
This does not mean that the problem 
is solved, however. It is only the Audu¬ 
bon warden, living alone in the steaming 
swamps and faithfully guarding the few 
remaining birds left under his care, that 
prevents a score of poachers from sneak¬ 
ing in and “shooting out the rookery.” It 
is only by his loyal vigilance that the 
egrets are able to survive a single breed¬ 
ing season. The lure of the prices offered 
for the feathers of the unfortunate birds 
is too attractive to be given up easily. A 
single scalp containing about fifty plumes 
sells for ten or fifteen dollars. A suc¬ 
cessful raid on a breeding colony probably 
would net the poachers a profit of about 
five thousand dollars. With such a re¬ 
ward in sight they were willing to take 
their chances in breaking State and Fed¬ 
eral Laws for the protection of the egrets. 
Their defiance of law and order has 
reached a much more serious degree— 
two Audubon wardens have been killed by 
the poachers while defending their reser¬ 
vations ; others have been wounded, and 
hardly a summer passes without a revival 
of the feud in some of the colonies. 
Realizing the great danger of losing 
what few birds 
remained, the 
Association has 
secured control 
of about thirty 
nesting - sites 
for the purpose 
of establishing 
reserva- 
tions. Twenty 
wardens have 
been posted to 
patrol these 
colonies — all 
keen, able men 
who know 
their business 
thoroughly and 
who take pride 
in their work. 
As a direct re¬ 
sult of the 
amount of time 
and labor and 
energy put into 
this branch of 
conservation we 
in such cold-blooded slaughter could not 
be expected to show much mercy or pity 
for their victims. They have been known 
to prop up wounded birds on the marsh to 
decoy their companions to a similar fate. 
Such were the sickening conditions to 
be faced in fighting this brutal business. 
In 1910 the Audubon Societies drove the 
feather-dealers out of New York. Whole¬ 
sale milliners then moved their headquar¬ 
THE PROTECTION OF AMERICA’S BIRD LIFE 
