10 THE AU DU BON BUT ieee 
The Illegal Feather Situation 
MANY OF our members are no doubt wondering what has been accomplished 
in the problem of the sale of forbidden feathers in the millinery trade. 
Ninety per cent of the dealers and a like proportion of the stocks were 
claimed to be under the control of members of Feather Industries of 
America, Inc., of New York, and naturally the efforts at regulation centered 
in that state. A bill acceptable to the association was passed, and on April 
18 of this year was signed by Governor Lehman. 
The new regulation required all dealers in wild feathers to file a sworn 
inventory with the State Conservation Department by May 15, and to report 
on their stock each year through 1946. During a six year period it will be 
legal to trade in wild feathers, but only from inventoried stocks, to which 
nothing may be added. Within thirty days after April 15, 1947, any wild 
bird plumage which may remain in their hands must be delivered to the 
Conservation Department for destruction, or for distribution to educa- 
tional institutions for exhibition purposes. 
Plumage of egret, bird of paradise, heron, bald eagle and golden eagle 
was not included in the permissible inventories, and twenty-seven cases of 
these, valued at more than $25,000, were voluntarily turned over and 
publicly burned. After six years the wild plumage trade will be over, but 
that does not necessarily mean that no feathers will be worn in the bonnets 
of that day. Still listed as legal are various domestic varieties of chickens, 
turkeys, Guinea fowl, geese, ducks, pigeons, ostriches, ringnecked pheasants, 
pea fowl and rheas, and these should furnish color enough to catch any eye. 
One loophole in the federal statute still remains in the provision for 
the importation of feathers to be used in tying fishing flies. An amendment 
to the present law is being sought which will put an end to this source of 
supply. We can then sit back and smile to ourselves until some new angle 
is thought up by those who are always willing to supply the demand for 
“something different.” 
& ft Ft 
THROUGH AN oversight due to a similarity of names, we are sorry that the 
name of a new member was omitted from the list published in the June 
issue of the Bulletin. The new member was the Belvidere Bird Club, Mrs. 
W. D. Lambert, President. 
a FI ft 
“KILLING FOR fun”—what a disgrace for the human race! Practically no 
hunting now is for needed food, which can be had much cheaper in the shops, 
and, anyway, most of the people doing the killing are already overfed. Yet 
it is proposed to again permit shooting of the wood duck, a species given 
up as lost only a few years ago. What could that be but “killing for fun?” 
ft ft ft 
F’RoM 1917, when a bounty on bald eagles was offered in Alaska, to 1926, 
41,812 bounties had been paid and killings were estimated at 70,000. 
Bounties on 4,906 eagles were paid in 1937, and the first six months of 1938 
accounted for 2,687 more. Is it strange that the bald eagle, our national 
emblem, is becoming scarce? 
