Mr. Alfred Newton writes a striking protest to yesterday's Times
against the wholesale slaughter of birds for the sake of ornamental feathers. He quotes the proceedings of a single sale of feathers, to show that to supply that sale alone 9.700 herons (or egrets) must have been destroyed. All these feathers are said to have come from India last autumn. Mr. Newton observes that no country could supply 10,000 herons in a single breeding-season without nearly rooting out the stock. Moreover, 15,000 humming-birds and upwards were included in the sale, of which 740 were of a single kind. As far as we know, none of these birds really diminish the stock of food avail- able for man, so that in destroying them for mere show, we empty the world absolutely of a certain portion of its beauty and happiness,—while the beauty is certainly by no means made up in the ornamentation of feminine toilettes which is thus procured. In this age of fine moralities, does no one really bestow a thought on the morality of such reckless spoliation of life as this ?
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