[Illustration:  MISCELLANEOUS BIRD SKINS, 8 CENTS EACH Purchased by the New York Zoological Society from the Quarterly Sale in London, August, 1912]

Yes, indeed, members of the British Parliament:  it is easily within your power to wipe out at a single stroke fully one-half of the bird slaughter for fancy feathers.  It can be done just as we wiped out one-half the annual duck slaughter in wickedly-wasteful North Carolina!

The feather trade absolutely does control the killing situation!  Now, will the people of England clean house by controlling the feather trade?  If a hundred species of the most beautiful birds of the world must be exterminated for the feather trade, let the odium rest elsewhere than on the people of England.

The bird-lovers of America may rest assured that the bird-lovers of England—­a mighty host—­are neither careless nor indifferent regarding the wild-birds’ plumage business.  On the contrary, several bills have been brought before Parliament intended to regulate or prohibit the traffic, and a measure of vast importance to the birds of the world is now before the House of Commons.  It is backed by Mr. Percy Alden, M.P., by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, by the Selbourne Society, and by Mr. James Buckland—­a host in himself.  For years past that splendidly-equipped and well-managed Royal Society has waged ceaseless warfare for the birds.  Its activity has been tremendous, and its membership list contains many of the finest names in England.  The address of the Honorary Secretary, Frank E. Lemon, Esq., is 23 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, S.W.

Naturally, these influences are opposed by the Textile Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, and their only argument consists of the plea that if London doesn’t get the money out of the feather trade, the Continent will get it!  A reasonable, logical, magnificent and convincing excuse for wholesale bird slaughter, truly!

Mr. Buckland has been informed from the Continent that the people of France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium are waiting and watching to see what England is going to do with the question, “To slaughter, or not to slaughter?” For England has no monopoly of the birds’ plumage trade, not by any means.  Says Mr. Buckland ("Pros and Cons of the Plumage Bill,” page 17): 

“As regards the vast majority of fancy feathers used in millinery, the Continent receives its own supplies.  The feathers of the hundreds of thousands of albatrosses which are killed in the North Pacific all go to Paris.  Of the untold thousands of ‘magpies,’ owls, and other species which come from Peru, not one skin or feather crosses the Channel.  The white herons of the Upper Senegal and the Niger are being rapidly exterminated at the instigation of the feather merchants, but not one of the plumes reaches London.  Paris receives direct a large supply of aigrettes from South America and elsewhere....  The millions of swallows and other migratory birds which are killed annually as they pass through Italy, France and Spain on their way north, supply the millinery trade of Europe with an incredible quantity of wings and other plumage, but none of it is distributed from London....  London, as a distributing center, has no monopoly of the trade in raw feathers.”