WAS the question which confronted the fair sex this year when about to
select their Easter hats or bonnets.
"Say flowers," pleaded the members of the Audubon Society, and from the
many fair heads, innocent of feather adornment, which bowed before the
lily-decked altars on Easter morning, one must believe that the plea was
heeded.
Nearly every large house in Chicago, dealing wholly or in part in millinery
goods, was visited by a member of the Audubon Society, says the _Tribune_.
One man who sells nothing but millinery declared that the bird protective
association was nothing but a fad, and that it would soon be dead. He
further said he would sell anything for hat trimming, be it flesh, fish, or
fowl, that a _woman would wear_.
Touching the question whether the beautiful Terns and Gulls, with their
soft gray and white coloring, were to be popular, it was said that they
would not be used as much as formerly. One salesman said that he would try,
where a white bird was requested, to get the purchaser to accept a domestic
Pigeon, which was just as beautiful as the sea and lake birds named.
The milliners all agree that the Snowy Egret is doomed to extermination
within a short time, its plumes, so fairy-like in texture, rendering its
use for trimming as desirable in summer as in winter.
As to the birds of prey, people interested in our feathered friends are as
desirous of saving them from destruction as they are to shield the song
birds. There are only a few of the Hawks and Owls which are injurious, most
of them in fact being beneficial. Hundreds of thousands of these birds were
killed for fashion's sake last fall, so that this coming season the farmer
will note the absence of these birds by the increased number of rat, mouse,
and rabbit pests with which he will have to deal.
It is a matter of congratulation, then, to the members of the Audubon
Society to know that their efforts in Chicago have not been wholly
fruitless, inasmuch as the majority of dealers in women's headgear are
willing to confess that they have felt the effect of the bird protective
crusade.
Dr. H. M. Wharton, pastor of Brantly Baptist Church, Baltimore, has always
been a bitter opponent of those who slaughter birds for millinery purposes.
"It is wholesale murder," said he, "and I am delighted that a bill is to be
offered in the Maryland legislature for the protection of song birds. I
have commented from the pulpit frequently upon the evil of women wearing
birds' wings or bodies of birds on their hats, for I have long considered
it a cruel custom."
"Birds are our brothers and sisters," said the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost
before the Unity Congregation at Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburg, a few
weeks ago. "If we are children of God, so are they. The same intelligence,
life, and love that is in us is in them. The difference between us is not
in kind, but in degree."
"How is this murderous vanity of women to be overcome?" asks _Our Animal
Friends_. "We confess we do not know; but this we do know, that good women
can make such displays of vanity disreputable, and that good women _ought
to do it_."
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