FASHIONABLE FEATHERS.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 82, 7 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

FASHIONABLE FEATHERS.

According to the Spectator those personswho oppose the employment of feathers in millinery on the ground of cruelty are making a great mistake. The egret plume, which the writer considers " unapproachable as an ornament," is now very rarely plucked from the bird, being much oftener than not the product of manual skill. And the same is true of the feather decorations, while if it were not for the demands of fashion ostriches would long ago have ceased to exist. Fine feathers, it seems, make not only fine birds, but fine misconceptions. Incidentally the writer states that the apex of the Prince of Wales's crown is a tuft of feathers tipped with gold, said to be worth £10,000, which took, says an organ of the bird trade, twenty years to collect, and cost the lives of a dozen hunters. He adds, in quotation marks, " The bird from whose tail the feathers are plucked is called theferiwah — a sort of creature of the bird of Paradise species, but of the rarest kiud. To obtain a tail feather in its full beauty it is necssary to pluck it out of the living bird, as instantly after death the plumage becomes 'lustreless. What makes the hunting of the feriwah so dangerous is that the bird always frequents the haunts of tigers !"