[Illustration:  YOUNG EGRETS, UNABLE TO FLY, STARVING The Parent Birds had Been Killed by Plume Hunters]

[Illustration:  SNOWY EGRET, DEAD ON HER NEST Wounded in the Feeding-Grounds, and Came Home to Die.  Photographed in a Florida Rookery Protected by the National Association of Audubon Societies]

I have camped with Seminoles, whites, blacks, outlaws, and those within the pale, connected with plume-hunting, and all tell the same story:  The birds are shot to get the plumes. The evidence of my own eyes, and the action of the birds themselves, convinces me that there is not a shadow of doubt concerning this point.”

This sworn testimony from Mr. T.J.  Ashe, of Key West, Florida, is very direct and to the point: 

“I have seen many moulted and dropped feathers from wild plumed birds.  I have never seen a moulted or dropped feather that was fit for anything.  It is the exception when a plumed bird drops feathers of any value while in flight.  Whatever feathers are so dropped are those that are frayed, worn out, and forced out by the process of moulting.  The moulting season is not during the hatching season, but is after the hatching season.  The shedding, or moulting, takes place once a year; and during this moulting season the feathers, after having the hard usage of the year from wind, rain and other causes, when dropped are of absolutely no commercial value.”

Mr. Arthur T. Wayne, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., relates in sworn testimony his experience in attempting to secure egret plumes without killing the birds: 

“It is utterly impossible to get fifty egret plumes from any colony of breeding birds without shooting the birds.  Last spring, I went twice a week to a breeding colony of American and snowy egrets, from early in April until June 8.  Despite the fact that I covered miles of territory in a boat, I picked up but two American egret plumes (which I now have); but not a single snowy egret plume did I see, nor did my companion, who accompanied me on every trip.

“I saw an American egret plume on the water, and left it, purposely, to see whether it would sink or not.  Upon visiting the place a few days afterwards, the plume was not in evidence, undoubtedly having sunk.  The plumes are chiefly shed in the air while the birds are going to or coming from their breeding grounds.  If that millinery plume law is repealed, the fate of the American and snowy egrets is sealed, for the few birds that remain will be shot to the very last one.”

Any man who ever has been in an egret rookery (and I have) knows that the above testimony is true!  The French story of the beautiful and smoothly-running egret farms in Venezuela is preposterous, save for a mere shadow of truth.  I do not say that no egret plumes could be picked up, but I do assert that the total quantity obtainable in one year in that way would be utterly trivial.

No; the “ospreys” of the British feather market come from slaughtered egrets and herons, killed in the breeding season.  Let the British public and the British Parliament make no mistake about that.  If they wish the trade to continue, let it be based on the impregnable ground that the merchants want the money, and not on a fantastic dream that is too silly to deceive even a child that knows birds.