Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-05-06
MAR|bOU SHOOTING
 MENACE ID INDIA
MARIBoU SCAvENGERS SLAUGH TERED FOR woMEN's FINERY
Audubon Agents Are Hopeful of Avert ing Further Killing-President Roose- velt's Establishment of Bird Ref. uges' Pleases Enthusiasts.

NSNS @ASoSOo A9AeANoAoobo, H
 NEW YORK, iday off the death
 rate from fever in India goes up this
 summer, the women who have been
 wearing maribou boas this winter ought
 to feel several twinges of conscience.
 The present popularity of the maribou
 feathers has made havoc with the mari.
 bou stork in India, which, according to
 William Duteher, president of the Ma
 tional Association of Audubon Societies.
 is the most numerous and industrious
 member of the street-cleaning depart
 ment of the Indian empire. So import ant is the work of the maribou stork as a scavenger that its rapid cxtermina. tion in the last two winters is making
 things very unpleasant in India.
 With this exception, however, the Au. dubon society is feeling very much en. couraged in its selfimposed task of saving wild birds fro mextermination. The greatest help which the society has received lately has been in the attitude taken by President Roosevelt He is doing what no other president has ever done to assist the association. When ever the soeiety's agents find colony of birds of one of the species in dan ger of eXtermination on national terri. tory, the president is immediately noti- fled, and that section is immediately set aside as "bird refuge" by the depart. ment of agriculture and is put under the care of an Audubon warden. Only this week President Roosevelt notified Mr. Butcher that the whole group of the Tortugas Islands, of the coast of Florida, had been set aside in this way. and the society has sent a man from Key West to see that the "brd refuge T is unmolested in the nesting season.
 Aiding Audubon Society
 This aetion on the part of the presi dent enables the Audubon society to put up more effective fight than ever before to preserve the native American birds. Outside of the United States. be- cause of the lack of legal support, it is almost impossible to do this. The bird of paradise is making its last and ap. parently hopeless stand in the Papuan islands, notrh of Australia, and the mar l ibou stOrk is meeting its fate in India. but in this country at least things are on the mend.
 The particular object of protection now is the ''least term The bird was about on the verge of destruction. but the society has found small number of the species and has started several small colonies of them-two in Massa | ehusetts, one in Virginia, one in North | Carolina and one in soathern Califor- | mia. In these refugees the terms are watched by bird wardens and guarded from wholesale slaughter in the breeding season.
 Although the states has not SO far passed the "model'' law, forbidding the sale of the pumage of wild birds, irrespective of the place from which lt has been brought, the Audubon soei. ety expects that New York will fall in line next year. This winter the bill was defeated, owing 10 the lack of sup. port of the game commissioner. but he has now pledged himself to put through the desired amendments to the present laws at the next session of the legisla- ture.
 Substitutes for Wild Plumage
 While these laws protect the wild birds, they do not in any way forbid the use of feathers as millinery acces- sories. The designers are left to try their skill on the plumage of the domes- JIG fowls, and the shops show what artistic wonders are being achieved by the judieious treatment of turkey and guinea feathers, and even the plumage or the common market hen. In the warerooms of the largest importing house m the country there are displayed a few of the genuine aigrettes and bird or paradise plumes, under the Audubon 1 law. But far more numerous than these are the clever limitations made for the ' cheaper trade and for the states where | the "model' law prevails. The tail } feathers of the humble turkey are made l into most attractive aigrettes, SO skill f fully that they frequently pass for the ] real thing. For every real bird of para. l disc plume there are few hundred of a
 'NNANhk VINdNuo, ~ known as "B. and O." feathers. but { which originally adorned the spring a chicken. Practically every wing used this season is made from various sizes of hen feathers, and genuine maribou c IS hardly to be had for loye or money. Goose down, however, fills th;s lack, and If the American women who have been playing havoc with the primitive stree. cleaning arrangements of India. they are now threatening the feather bed of Germany.
 Making goose-down into maribous is O Tar more profitable than using it for f feather-beds, as the farmers of Ger a many have discovered, and the result s IS an abundant crop of "maribou'' y f winch never saw the plains of India. a In fact, the only wild birds used this t, spring are the unfortunate herons, the