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And men there were, who thought to make themselves grander in the dress of their organization by walking about with heron plumes waving on their heads. The two kinds of white herons with wonderful plumes that have been put to such uses are called Egrets and Snowy Egrets, and the feathers, when they are stripped from the birds, are called by the French name of aigrette.
For your purpose, I report upon three sales, at different periods of the year 1911, and as those sales do not vary much, you will be able to judge the consumption of birds in a year." The "aigrettes" of the feather trade come from egrets, and, being very light, it requires the death of several birds to yield one ounce.
To-day 20,000 pairs of egrets and herons are living and breeding in that bird refuge, and the two egret species are safe in at least one spot in our own country. Three years ago, I think there were not many bird-lovers in the United States, who believed it possible to prevent the total extinction of both egrets from our fauna.
Altogether it is a very shrewd piece of work, even though its arguments in justification of bird slaughter for the feather market are too absurd and weak for serious consideration. The chief burden of the defender of bird slaughter for millinery purposes is on account of the destruction of egrets and herons, but particularly the former.
This war of extermination which was carried forward unchecked for years could mean but one thing, namely, the rapid disappearance of the Egrets in the United States. As nesting birds, they have disappeared from New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and also those States of the central Mississippi Valley where they were at one time to be found in great numbers. Amateur Feather Hunters.
After years of stress and struggle, it now seems almost certain that this organization will save the two white egrets, producers of "the white badge of cruelty," to the bird fauna of the United States, as in a similar manner it has saved the gulls, terns and other sea birds of our lakes and coast line. This splendid organization is one of the monuments to William Dutcher.
And even the shooting and hunting would suffice to feed us; game is plentiful, there are partridges and wild guinea-fowl, not to mention the flamingoes, the pelicans, the egrets, the thousands of creatures who do not prey on one another.
Nor was this all; along with the pelicans prodigious numbers of other water-birds had selected this for their dwelling-place, and covered the trees in thousands, standing on the topmost branches; tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and other waders. We had disturbed them thus early, before their habitual hour for betaking themselves to their fishing-fields.
This was corroborated later on when streams of white egrets flew past, scattering to find their morning meal.
But his eye lingered in the north. He stood with his dog curled at his feet beside a bunch of egrets, killed for their plumage, the butt of his long fowling-piece resting on the platform, and the arm half outstretched whose hand grasped the barrels near the muzzle. The hand, toil-hardened and weather-browned, showed, withal, antiquity of race.
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