[To TIE EDITOR Or TILE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—Mr. Dovrnham has made the confession which no doubt the Hon. Secretary of the Plumage Bill Group desired. In regard to the proportion between moulted and "shot" plumes from Venezuela, Mr. Downham stands by the " latest " figures—i.e., by those which Mr. Sydney Brooks has quoted, although he himself gave higher figures twelve years ago be- fore the House of Lords Committee. This, then, is proof of one of two things. Either all the much vaunted laws passed in the intervening period by the Venezuelan Republic are, as the Plumage Bill Group has always claimed, so much waste paper, not saving the life of a single bird, or else Mr. Down- ham and Mr. Brooks are poor authorities on statistics. Sup- porters of the Bill are, anyhow, entitled to say that, as far as the Venezuelan egrets are concerned, there has, on the trade's own showing, been no improvement in the situation. If they are feeling at all vindictive they may, on the same
evidence, add that the moulted plume is rarer than ever.—I
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