Morris tribune., 1890-10-08
THE BIRDS ON THE HATS.
A RATHER BITTER ARRANGEMENT OF
FAD AND ITS FRIENDS.

to Secure Their Plumage-Extracts from
Different Sources to Show What the
Practice Means.
One of your esteemed contemporaries
had an article recently on bird Plum
age on Women's Heads, which is so mis-
leading and so favorable to the interests
of the feather dealers that, if it had been
dictated by one of those gentlemen, it
could hardly have been more so.
Dead birds mean dollars to the feather
dealer, and he would stife the gush of
song in the throat of the bobolink with
as little compunction as he would crush
a mosquito. 1t is not to be supposed
that these men are going to volunteer
any information that will iniure their
trade; on the contrary, it is their part to
suppress all unpleasant facts, and to
soothe and put to sleep the conscientious
scruples of women on the subject of
dead bird millinery. With your kind
permission I will mention few facts for
the benefit of your readers which will
rather disprove some previous statements.
To affirm that the domestic canary is
never used for millinery purposes is un-
true. The writer saw hat only short
time since with five canaries upon it, ar
ranged in such fantastic attitudes as to
suggest the idea that the wearer was
fit subject for the lunatic asylum. Either
we must believe what the feather dealers
tell us, and distrust the evidence of our
own senses, or we must believe what the
leading ornithologists of the country
tell us, and for my part I prefer to be-
ieve the latter. In 1886 the rage for
dead bird millinery had reached climax,
and the ornithologists published report
showing the appalling destruction of our
song birds to satisfy the demands of
barbarous and demoralizing fashion.
The report says: "Frora. carefully gath
cred statistics it is proved that on the
most moderate calculation 5000, 900 song
birds are annually required to fill the
demand for the ornamentation of the
hats of American women. The slaughter
is not confined to song birds; everything
that wears feathers is a target for the
bird butcher. In single season 10000
terms were killed at Cape Cod for ex-
portation, and the swamps and marshes
of Florida have been depopulated of
their egrets and herons. In one month
100000 bobolinks have been killed
near Philadelphia, and from single
Long Island village 10000 song birds
were supplied in a short time to New
York dealers for millinery purposes"
The above are only few extracts
from the report, but enough to show
what the slaughter has been; and if
song birds are not used SO much now on
hats as formerly, it is owing to the re-
straining influence of the Audubon So.
ciety. This society is an outgrowth of
the committee on bird protection of the
American Ornithologists' union, and has
members today in every state in the
union and in Canada.
Probably if the wearers of the plumes
of the Florida egrets knew at what cost
these plumes are obtained, there would
be less demand for them, and as women
as often sin in this matter from ignor-
ance and want of thought as from want
of heart, it is only right they should
know. A correspondent of The Audu-
bon Magazine (see July number, 1881
writes from Pinecastle. Fla, as follows;
Through my meanderings watched
closely for birds and deer. I saw but
few hundred birds, where formerly had
seen from 10000 to 10000. met plenty
of hunters with buggies and wagons
loaded with bird plumes. The birds are
killed at season of the year when they
are rearing their young. On passing the
pookeries where the hunters had been
few days previous, the screams and calla
of the starving young birds we're pitifuI
to hear. Some were just hedged, while
others were SO young that they could
make but little noise, But all NUT in
evitably starve to death. / cannot de-
scribe the horror it gave me to hear
the pitiful screams of the dying little
BIRDS"
think your esteemed contemporary
has got rather mixed up in his ornithol-
ogy when he speaks of the cedar bird as
the rice bird which does SO much injury |
to the crops iI the south, so that its de-
struction is rather q benefit than other
wise. But quite understand his descrip-
tion of "bird effects" The way the birds |
are torn up, and the different parts dis |
tributed upon hats, would be quite in ac-
With the fitness of things In the |
mind of savage, but It Is an ..---.l .1' y ''ie
taste and feeling of civilized people. I
On one hat is breast without head or
body, on another a decapitated head
with glass eyes stares out from between
EGGS. or the bird is smashed fat, as If killed
with a stone-more the position 1t would
Sake in its dying agonies than any pose
t could possibly assume in life, Still.