GREAT HORNED OWL
Rabbits constitute a favorite food when available. Poultry and other birds are also destroyed by this owl. Range: Eastern North America.
It seems to be a general law of nature that the finest songsters have the plainest coats.
BROWN PELICANS IN FLORIDA
The Pelicans nest in colonies, and the young feed from the parents' throats. Range: Gulf coast of U. S. and southward. Habitat Group in The American Museum of Natural History.
EGRETS: PARENT BIRDS
Among the birds that we enjoy on account of their beautiful plumage are the Egrets, every feather of their coats being as white as snow, and the plumes of these birds are so beautiful, and human beings have been so thoughtless that the Egrets have been almost exterminated in order to supply the millinery trade. These plumes, known as aigrettes, grow on the backs between the shoulders of both the male and female birds, and are worn only during the nesting season. The only time during the nesting season that the plume hunter finds it profitable to hunt these birds is when the young are in the nest. At any other time the birds would be so wild that the plume hunter could not easily shoot them. When the young are in the nest the parental love is so strong that the adult birds cannot resist the instinct to return to feed the nestlings when they are begging for food. In this way both the father bird and the mother bird become an easy prey for the ambushed plume hunter, and there is but one thing that can happen to the baby Egrets in the nest after both of their parents have been killed—they starve to death. This is one of the most cruel phases of the plume trade, and there is no other way to secure the aigrette plumes of the Egrets than by killing the adult birds. Fortunately, in the United States it is against the law to shoot these birds, and it is against the law to import the plumes. Until recently it has not been illegal to wear these plumes, and the fact that there are still a few women who adorn their hats with them has encouraged the illegal and cruel killing of these birds in our country, or the smuggling in of the plumes from some other country. In the latter part of 1919 the federal regulations have been interpreted to make it illegal to possess aigrette plumes, and henceforth the law will be so enforced. This is the successful culmination of a long fight by the Audubon Society.
