The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-02-07

birds pow~have families to provide for
ana are active throughout the day AS
they return with food for their young
they rest moment on the lookout perch,
oHeflng an excellent mark to the hunter
concealed below. The bird falls, the
slight report of the rifle does not alarm
Others that soon follow, and within few
days most of the parent birds have been
killed, While the nestl1nGs, lacking their
care, die of starvation,
The method is simple-any boy with
gun cansbecome plume hunter-but SO
effective tnat at the present rate Of de-
struotionsthe herons will soon sucoumb
to 1t. A Florida plume hunter once told
the writer that with two or three assis-
tants he had killed three hundred egrets
in one afternoon. Another boosted that
he and his party had killed one hundred
and thirty thousand birds, mostly plume
birds, during one season.
Having practically exterminated the
egrets in Florida plume hunters have
turned their attention to other PARTS of
papers, offering Target prices to native
hunters, and organizing expeditions to
explors the coasts and inland marshes,
from our southern boundaries to the Ar
gentine Republic.
ITO prevent the killing of birds
throughout this great region is obviously
impossible, and laws which alone prohibit
therefore, laws arespassed forbidding the
wearing of aigrettes the salvation of the
herons rests solely in woman's hands. -
The bird of paradise is also threatened
with extinction. The species most in
vogue for feminine adornment exists in
the Papuan Islands and New Guinea, and
here the hunters find it difficult to obtain
su oh perfect specimens as they formerly
secured, because the birds are 80 ruthless
ly destroyed that they do not live long
enough to reach the full height of their
beauty, several years being required for
the development of the male birds plum
age. Some idea of the extent to which
the destruction of these birds is going on
may be gathered from the fact that at q
recent sale in London 5000 Of them were
put up at auction.
This bird of beautiful plumage. which
has been SO much seen on wOmen's hats,
this winter, with the Tyre bird of Central
and South America, according to the
most eminent ornithologists of the day
will soon be extinct, and the only speci-
mems to be seen will be those in the glass
cases of natural history museums.
The third bird the wholesale destruo-
tion OF which threatens to soon render it
thing of the past is the graceful tern,
own coast line but which has now
become almost exterIninated. At least
nine-tenths of the destruction is due to
the fashion Of wearing these birds, or
parts of them. as ornaments. The tern
Is gray bird, of dove gray color, with
black tipped wings. black throat, head
and bill, and is a very familiar and popu.
lar bird in the millinery world.
The fourth bird. and the one most USE
full to the agriculturist, is the owl-the
common barn owl, which has been SO
much in evidence on women's hats this
winter. Why they should have become
the fad it is hard to determine, as they
are anything bat beautiful or even be-
coming.
Owls and hawks are the farmers best
friends, because their food consists of
the small rodents within their reach.
With two exceptions-the sharp-skinned
and Ccoper's hawk-all our commoner
hawks and owls are beneficial. In his
study off the foods of these
birds Dr. A. X. Fisher, assistant
ornithologist Of the United States depart
ment of agriculture, has found that so
per cent of the food of the red shouldered
hawk, commonly called .chicken hawk"
or chen hawk" consists of injurious
mammals and insects, while 200 castings
of the barn owl contained the skulls OF
asa small mammals, no less than 225 of
them being skulls of the destructive field
or meadow mouse.
Still, these birds are not only not pro-
tected, but in some states a price Is ac-
tually set upon their headsl DR.. G. Hart
Merriam, ornithologist and nlammalogist
of the department of agriculture, has es-
timated that in Offering bounty on
hawks and owls, which resulted in the
killing of more than 100 600 of these birds,
the stage ofaPennsylvania sustainedsa loss
of nearly 81, 00), 900 in one year and
half.
A well known ornithologist said:
can ordinary barn owl will consume
100 to 200 field mice in one night. They
swallow the mice whole. The gastric
juices in the OWLS stomach will turn and
turn the mice until all the digestible por-
tions of the body are separated from the
bones and skin, which will finally be
formed into pellet and elected through
the mouth of the bird. Wal ing under
trees known to be inhabited y owls, you
may a1pick up these pelletssor stings, ana
upon opening them you Will discover
them to be filled with these bones.
1t can thus be seen how necessary th6l
barn owl is and the wholesale destruc-
ton of this bird for the adornment of
hats may result in a very sari
Gus manner to the American farmer.
Here ara some figures, just from Lon
don, relative to the largest auction sale of
feathers of the year: Osprey plumes,
II, 352 ounces; vulture plumes. 1856 4
pounds; peacock feathers, 2l5,051 birds
birds of paradise, 1850; Indian parrots,
1928, 2s9; bronze pigeons, etc, BITS taDa-
gers, ETC., SO, 1875; humlning birds, II, 400;
Jays and kingfsbers, as, 759; impeyan
etc., 1889; owls and hawks,
7,163.
In contemplating this wholesale de-
5truction of birds for the characterization
u. women's hats, the editor Of scientific
paper says:
awe are willing to leave the irresponsi
Die half of creation all their 'chiffons'
which means rags or 'women's dress,
rs you pIease-their coal tar dyes and
heir scrap iron, if they will only leave
rs our birds. The rate at which some of
he ,rarest and most beautiful birds ON
our planet are being destroyed to crafty
this extraordinary taste, can hardly be
,ealized, nor can we overlook the terrible
suffering involved by this enormous
slaughter-the young osprey, bereft OF
ts parents, left to die in hundreds; the
Ieron, with the plumes torn from its
pack, writhing into death!''