Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-03-09
THE PLUME HARVEST
Hunters in Southern States Furnish
 Northern Markets.
Lead Lonely Lives fin the swamps, Where They Are Constantly on the Watch for Feathered
 Creatures.

hunters are reaping their harvest. They are the men who in all of the thousands of bays, inlets and bayous of the South Atlantic coast, on the marshy ponds of the interior and in the great swampy districts shoot shore birds for their plumage only.
 It is an industry widely spread, in which good deal of capital is invest ed and a good deal of work done, and properly conducted it is highly re- munerative, says recent report in the New York Sun.
 The plume hunter must face all sorts of weather, of course, except very cold weather. He must know what birds are most highly valued and where they are to be found, how they are to be ap- preached and how their plumage is to be preserved after they are dead. There is nothing difficult about the work
 Probably there are more plume hunt CTS in Florida than in any other state, the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, down the Atlantic edge of Georgia and in Texas and Arkansas.
 They get all sorts of birds because of late years plumes have become scarcer and milliners now use feathers they would have disdained formerly, but in the main they devote themselves to well-plumed shore birds, some of which are of extremely beautiful hues. Among the birds of Florida most steadily pursued are the herons, black, white, blue and green. These are in tens of thousands, and though they are shy, they can be reached by man who knows how.
 Avocats, black and white, are slain in numbers, as is the whooping crane, ! nishes so many handsome feathers that it is rich haul. Flamingoes of a light pink, those of so dark pink as to be almost crimson and the pink and white and pink and blue varieties are eagerly sought.
 The curlews, sandpipers and other trotters along the sands are gathered in, and fishhawks and pelicans are knocked down at every opportunity. | There is also relentless war against the many kinds of southern gulls. In fact, pretty nearly all feathers are regarded as good things by the plume hunter except the buzzard's feathers, or the feathers of the yellow-tipped Mexican vu1ture.
 The skins are rudelv but effe ctual1y preserved. They are taken off whole, with the wings left on, and after the. fat is scraped from them they are rubbed with salt and powdered arsenic. No further attention is paid to them, except to pack them securely, and they reach New York in excellent condition. With many of the smaller birds more care is taken, and the plume hunter in preserving them may even rise to taxidermy. It is often desired to save these skins with the heads on, so that the whole bird may adorn some wom- ans bonnet. The plume hunters do very well, some of them and are pa tient about. learning, because the bet ter work of this sort is done the more money they will get for it when it reaches the wholesale feather houses in the north.
 As general thing plume hunters lead lonely and exposed lives, camp 1 ing under ragged tents in swampy dis tricts, doing their own cooking, stand ing or sneaking for hours in the mud 1 and day and night unspeakably dirty. Some of them have boats and drift up l and down the bayous, picking off g. crane or avocat here and there, or they force their way through tangled swamps, where the vines, swing low to the water, making for some hidden lagoon far in the forest, known to no man save them.
 Some of them have breechloaders, but not many of them, though the pump gun is finding it's way among them rapidly. They use cheap, black powder and unchilled shot, but they kill all right, and as the cost of am- intuition is much of an object with them, one will sometimes put in half a day trying to get little nearer.
 Occasionally small-caliber rifle is found among them, and this is much the best weapon for their business, but commonly they stick to antique, mug zle-loading double barrels, with water proof caps. A plume hunter with or dinary luck will clear up several hun dred dollars in winter and through the summer he fishes, half for profit, half for amusement, or loafs through the warm spell.