Never, in this country, at least, has there been such a slaughter of birds. A Cobb's Island, Virginia, bayman, whose conscience, even at this late date, urged him to a confession of shame for his part in the proceedings, told me recently that in a single day of that memorable season, 1,400 Terns were killed on Cobb's Island alone, and 40,000 are said to have been there shot during the summer. The destruction at other favorable places was proportionately great.
Two seasons of this work were sufficient to sweep the Terns from all their more accessible resorts, the only survivors being residents of a few uninhabited islands. Even here they would have succumbed had not bird-lovers raised a sum to pay keepers to protect them.
Then Fashion, as if content with the destruction she had wrought, found fresh victims, and the Terns, for a time, escaped persecution. Now, however, the demand for them has been revived, and again the milliners' agent is abroad placing a price on the comparatively few birds remaining. Before me is a circular issued by a New York feather dealer, asking for "large quantities" of "Sea Gulls, Wilson's Turns (sic), Laughing Gulls, Royal Gulls," etc., and this is only one instance among hundreds. In fact, the feather merchants themselves state that the demand for Terns and Gulls exceeds the supply.[J]
[J] See also note from 'Brooklyn Eagle' on [page 198].
What will be the result? Is there no appeal from Fashion's decree? Woman alone can answer these questions, and the case is so clear she cannot shirk the responsibility of replying.
Aigrettes are decorative, quills difficult to identify, neither bespeak death, and ignorance may lead the most humane woman into wearing either. But with the Tern no such excuse exists, and the woman who places its always disgustingly mutilated body on her bonnet, does so in deliberate defiance of the laws of humanity and good taste.
Frank M. Chapman.
"The greatest and best book ever written about birds."