Murderous Millinery.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14274, 13 August 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

Murderous Millinery.

'WOMAN'S VANITY. The Inn that, is being wrought among birds so as to satisfy woman's 1 vanity na.s pressed home, by' Mr James j Rueklaud in a striking speech at- the ! annual meeting of the Selbourne ■ Society. London. I -'The whole volume of the bird life of I the world is being reduced at an alarmi mg rate," he said, and then ho gave I the reason—that to obtair. the, feathers i the birds had to be killed in the brced- ■ iog season. | At that time birds' natural fear of | man disappears under the stress of proi viding for and protecting their young, I and it is under conditions such as these • that the old birds are shot and rifled ot their plumes, and the voting left to ; die of starvation in the nest. i . 'thirty years ago there were heronries Mil the Umt:d States which were t.-ti-mated to contain about 3,000,009 v. lute herons. At the same period these birds roamed widely ever China in prodi"- : ious multitudes. But evc,n these vast ; hordes could not withstand slaughter j during the breeding season, and"new | the white heron is practical I v . minated both in North America and in ! China. Now the same havoc is b.,mg ! wrought in South America —in every i country of the world, indeed, where j the white heron is still found. | _ The feeding grounds of the Amor Van ! .labiru, the largest but one of living j storks, are also the scenes of slaughter ! during the very period when the birds J should have respite. Thirty thousand ': quills of these birds are sold' in London j alone, and as the species was never very numerous it will soon be wiped i out. L | So wary is the bird that it Keeps be[yond the range of a fowling-piece l-i t .said Mr liuekiand, the jabiru is shot to-day with a. soft-nosed bullet from a. | Mauser rifle—a. dreadful missle, which I often tears away a great piece from the j body of the bird. Even in this sickeu- ■ i ng condition, unless the mutilation be jsucn as to prevent flight the | ma* :stie creature will take. ; "mg m olle last ci(forfc to ; escape. Or a sudden it- falls iii\-)..« s :to the earth—and woman's wish is gratified.

So jar th;uj year but three sales have taken place in London, vet in those -cliffc sales alone there were catalogued the skins of over l'o,ooo humming birds.

-liven the law is set at defiance bv tlto gangs oi men who make a livelihood !by the slaughter of the birds. Not ! ~"£•• "*=". ll P"« was surprised on one ol the islands which the United States I had decreed to be a "bird reservation " jj ami tnr.se men had in thoir possession ! the plumage of 300,000 birds. ! luere was no bird in the world to- ■ wards which the eyes of zoologists were turned ,ti more admiring wonder that that pnde ol Ausralia. the lyre bird. Met the rarer the bird became, the fiercer grew the competition to secure Us tail feathers, and not long ago a party or pltiiiie-hiint'j-s surrounded a pach oi scrub in which the birds were .known to be breeding, and setting fire to it, shot down the birds M ' they | struggled through the pitiless rino- Jf ' rYr t( > "'ft; death in another. i J hen the tan feathers were cut off and the bodies left to rot. It was decided to organise a, crusade throughout the country by m 6 ans of lantern lectures, and stir up public sentiment m favour of the Plumage ; Bill, ivJilu-h the importation of d'ea- , thers would be prohibited bv law ; and |an appeal- was made for subserip- ; tions. e