THE PLUMAGE BILL.
ITo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Snz,—As Mr. Baker's letter (June 26th) is simply Mr.Brooks's in slightly different language, I will beg your permission to answer only those points not covered by Mr. Brooks. Mr. Baker objects to my saying that the propaganda of the feather trade is "unscrupulous." I am tempted to make this letter nothing but a catalogue of the falsehoods (no, that is impolite)—inexacti- tudes—published by the trade in its own defence during, say, the last ten weeks. But that would bore the readers of the Spectator, and we are trying to save what is left of the birds. Considerations, Sir, are also due to your space. Of course the propaganda of this infamous trade is without scruples. The trade exists by killing off nesting birds for hats; the trade is unpopular with English people on that account; the trade defends itself—that is the whole story. Mr. Baker knows as well as I do that the " moulted " feather canard is an elaborate fabrication, but he utters it as a means of securing to the trade the very handsome profits of a traffic which relies upon the beauty and life of Nature for its raw material. I hardly blame him, for he must say something. The trade fighting for its money is not quite, to my mind, so contemptible as the women who persist in wearing wild birds in spite of the thirty years' continual exposures of what they are responsible for. The tatter's sacrifice is but a flower for a wing; the former's is a portion of their income.
Mr. Baker has been answered in all the main points about the " moulted " plumes of egrets. But let us suppose for a moment that what Mr. Baker says is true. Very well, then. Mr. Pam, of the Council of the Zoological Society, Sir William Flower, ex-Director of the Natural History Museum, Sir Ray Lankester, Mr. W. P. Pycraft, A.L.S., F.Z.S., Professor Newton, of the Dictionary of Birds, Mr. H. J. Mozans, A.M., Ph.D. (Up the Orinoco); Eugene Andre (A Naturalist in the Guiana:), Professor Goeldi (Birds of Brazil), the President and Secretary of the Sociedad Argentina Pro- tectora de los A.nimales, H.B.1&.'s Consul at Cordoba, IL E. Dresser (Birds of Europe), Mr. J. Quelch (formerly curator of the British Guiana Museum), and H.B.M.'s Minister. at Caracas, &c.—all these authorities, who, unlike Mr. Baker, have no axe to grind and have made the strictest investigation of the slaughter of egrets in their breed- ing plumage over South America, who have all come indepen- dently to the same conclusion, namely, that the " moulted " plume is an invention designed to blunt the edge of exposure, who have all declared themselves aghast at the terrific mas- sacres of breeding egrets—all these distinguished men are either the victims of credulity or the publishers of falsehood. If what Mr. Baker says is true, then let us accept the story of the " tordito" (a cousin of the phoenix and the basilisk), which lines its nest with egret feathers, which are collected by the hunters from it, of the egret plucking its plumes from its breast, of the Chinese egrets (now practically exterminated by the trade, as the egrets of the Danube were so exterminated) dropping their plumes on the Great Wall of China, &c.—let us accept them all without a' qualm. What the feather trade says about itself is true; what science says about the feather trade is false. So of the hundreds of other species used in this monstrous trade. piled un in the Cutler Street warehouses in
their hundreds of thousands as a witness to the humanity of what Mr. Ralph Hodgson calls in his noble poem "the pimps of fashion." Are the tails of lyre-birds "dropped "; does the Goura pigeon shed its head-dress; have humming birds a spare pair of wings; are trogons and troupials double-headed; are condors farmed; are the bills of toucans renewable; are terns kept in poultry runs; do bee-eaters shed their heads; and do kingfishers lead a double life, dead on a woman's hat and alive in a dress of flame on Indian rivers? Would that it were so! But they die in their millions, they are passing from the sun- shine, whose light their plumage borrows, to be the gawds of women.
Mr. Baker tells me new facts in Natural History about Para- dise birds. I had always believed that, being crow-shrikes, they were like the rest of the family—monogamous. One lives and learns. Yes, quite a number of "sensible men" believe that the species" (Mr. Baker presumably means family) is in danger of vanishing from the world of men, birds and flowers. What chance have these Paradise birds? Unhappily, they nest on small islantts and in special coast districts, and their habit of assembling for nuptial dances makes them an easy prey to the hunter, whose employers "deeply resent" the charges brought against them. All the species of Paradise birds are, according to Mr. Pycraft, in the gravest danger of becoming extinct; but, even were it not so, how vile, how wicked is the slaying of these glorious creatures—named aptly the birds of Paradise—for women to flaunt the signs of their parenthood!
I will pass over the "snap vote "; the trade knows that the overwhelming majority of the House of Commons is with the Bill, or it would scarcely have talked out the second reading on Aka 30th, or obstructed the Committee voting so persistently, where they have never gained a single amendment.
One last comment. It sounds quite plausible for the trade to say that its "obvious interest in securing an abundance of supplies is a preventive of cruelty and a stimulus to the protec- tion of birds." But the trade knows well enough that the ostrich is farmed because it is without wings, and that it is as ridiculous to talk of farming egrets and humming birds and albatrosses and sandpipers, &c., as it is to talk of farming robins. There is no other way of collecting winged birds to stick in hats except by killing them at nesting time, and as large fortunes can be made quickly by the traders owing to Nature's obliging present of the raw material, all their concern is to make their money for as long as the birds continue- in the world.—I am, Sir, &c., H. J. MASSINGHAII.
[P.S.—If only the spectators of egret farms in India would not take it upon themselves to rewrite natural history we might have rather more confidence in them. There was "H." telling us a month ago in your columns that the plumes of egrets grew out of their necks; now "Civil Surgeon" tells us that "the plumes are taken twice yearly," no wild bird in the world ever assuming more than one nuptial plumage per year. Still, let us overlook these little slips. I don't in the least impugn what "Civil Surgeon" says, all the same. I can, in fact, corroborate what he says by referring him to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (1914, Vol. xxiii.). There he will find Major Lindsay Smith's (a member of the British Ornithological Union) account of the blinding of egrets as decoys. The birds have threads or feathers thrust through their eyelids, and attract wild egrets in breeding plumage, which are then shot. In the winter they serve as a different kind of decoy—to English officials, being kept in pens which are conveniently called "farms," where they can be discreetly shown to visitors with the same knowledge of natural history which "Civil Surgeon" displays. Now, suppose that it were the fashion to wear the plumage of English blue-tits in hats and I were in the trade. Suppose some crank, some fanatic, some sentimentalist, some lunatic of sentiment, objected and proceeded to make it un- pleasant for me by exposing my little ways with blue-tits. What should. I do? I should send an order for a pair of large aviaries to be built, capture some scores of blue-tits, stick them in the avaries, pick one or two journalists I could trust, fill the Press with accounts of my humanity, my preservation of the blue-tit species, and have my blue-tit farms photographed as a guarantee of my good faith. That is what I should do if I made my money out of the blood of blue-tits. How odd it is that the trade objects to the Plumage Bill when the Bill expressly states that any wild bird which can be proved to be successfully farmed by impartial investigation will be admitted to the schedule of exemption. How very odd it is!—H. J. M.]
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