Conservation Reader

by Harold W. Fairbanks

Young great blue herons in their nest.

The slaughter began with the bright-colored songbirds, terns, gulls, herons, egrets, and flamingos. Then it extended to other sea birds, including the albatross, to bright-colored tropical birds, and to the wonderful birds of paradise. How true is the following statement made in a millinery store:

"You had better take the feather for twelve dollars," said the clerk, "for it is very cheap at that price. These feathers are becoming scarce and very soon we shall not be able to secure them."

Here is milady's beautiful cape glistening with all the colors of the rainbow. Of what is this gorgeous thing made? Would you believe it possible that it is formed entirely of humming birds' skins, with the heads and long, slender bills? Perhaps a thousand of the tiny birds were sacrificed that some woman might have a beautiful cape. Does it seem possible that any gentlewoman could wear this cape, who had any realization of the tragedies that had to take place in humming-bird life in order that it might be made? Could she wear this cape if she knew of the forsaken nests and the hundreds of dying young ones waiting for the mothers that never returned?

Finley & Bohlman

Finley & Bohlman

But more terrible, if anything, than the story of the humming-bird cape is the story of the delicate egret plumes on yonder hat. They once adorned the mother bird at nesting time in some far marsh. The feathers are almost perfect at this time, and to get them the bird must be killed. Each bunch of egret feathers represents a family tragedy,—a nest of little birds left to die, because the mother has been sacrificed to satisfy the demands of fashion.

The plume hunters invade the nesting places of the egrets, herons, and flamingos, often leaving not a single bird in what were once happy colonies, except the starving little ones. Millions of these plumes have been obtained along our seacoasts and about the interior lakes and marshes. Is it any wonder that the egrets are nearly extinct as a result of this merciless slaughter?

Now, when it is almost too late, protection has been given these beautiful birds. Bird refuges have been established at different favorable points along the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the Klamath and Malheur Lake regions of Oregon. These refuges are watched over by wardens, and we hope that the birds inhabiting them will thus be enabled to increase and again fill the almost forsaken marshes.