Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-08-11
Fine Feathers
youths Companion.)

Outn tOlDpdHloIi.J
The eye of knowledge, coupled with
the eye of imagination, makes an OPP
teal instrument of extraordinary
power Nothing made by man has
so wide a field or such microscopic
| definition.
Suppose we turn the glass for a mo-
ment to Venezuela. On the surface
| of a wilderness marsh we see some
thing move. 1t is bird,-an egret-
wounded, robbed of it's plumes, but
propped up and tied to stake to
serve as a decoy. 1t has been there
for two days and night, and mean
while has heard its young ones call
ling to it necessarily. 1t would stay
there much longer if the red ants had
not found it.. They will end its mis-
cry. The reason why it struggles so
now is that they are eating out its
eyes.
Move the glass a little, and you will
notice other birds fluttering at the
foot of tall trees. They cannot fly to
their young in the nests above, be-
cause the plume hunters have pulled
the quilts from their wings. In the
newly discovered egret colony in the
cypress swamps of southern Florida
you will see nest after nest full of
starved or starving young birds. The
spoilers have already found the place.
On Laysan Island, the albatross col
ony you can see a band of Japanese.
employed by German. kill 2S9.000
birds in single season. If you ask
why they starved the birds to death
after they had caught them, you will
learn that it was because they were
very fat. The oil in the skins might
have impaired the value of the plum
IaSe.
Shift the glass to Asia or Africa or
Australia, and you will witness the
death-struggles of Impeyan and argus
pheasants of trogons, birds of para
disc, marabou storks, lyre-birds, and
countless other species. Round the
whole circuit of the earth, and from
burning equator to everlasting ice,
the scenes are the same; not pictures
of the imagination, but facts: the an
swer of trade to woman's demand for
| feathers in millinery.
| For a time it looked as if we were
| going to end our part of the horrible
| business. In the new tariff bill, as
passed by the House, was a clause
| that prohibited the importation of the
| feathers or other parts OF any wild
bird, except only the plumes of the
ostrich and the feathers OF the do
nestle fowl. The subcommittee OF
| the Senate committee on finance at
| first so amended the clause as to adj
nit 1.-The feathers or plumes of game
birds usually killed for food purposes,
and birds which are killed as pests
They then changed it still further, to
read 'or the feathers or plumes of
birds commonly recognized as edible
or pestiferous." Subsequently, the
majority of the committee struck out
the whole clause, and left the section
in such form as to permit the impor-
tation of everything except aigrettes.
The Democratic caucus ratified the
action, and passed it on to the Senate
as a whole.
| If the bill passes in that form. or
even as first amended, there will be
scarcely a bird on the face of the
earth whose plumage may not be i'm
ported, for there is scarcely one that
is not somewhere used for food or by
some one regarded as pest. With
fine, although unconscious humor, the
Century Dictionary defines game
bird as "a bird ordinary pursued fol
sport or profit"
On one side in this fight are such
bodies as the New York Geological
Society, the National Association oil
Audubon Societies, the National and
State Federation of Womens Clubs
the Daughters of the Cenfederacy Of
Georgia, the Daughters of 1912 of tht
same state, the New York Council o.
Jewish Women, and similar organiza'
tons. On the other side are some
thirty firms of importing milliners.
! 1t Is reported that an extensive bee