The white ibis might well serve as the text of a symposium upon the
evils of plume-hunting to supply the constant demand of the millinery
trade. Suffice it to say here that this species, in common with
many other members of its family, and many other birds as well, has
decreased to the point of almost complete extermination within the
last fifteen years from this cause alone. Surely it must be true that
the living bird in its natural environment is far more pleasing to the
æsthetic sense than the few feathers which are retained and put to an
unnatural use.
As lately as 1880 the white ibis was decidedly numerous in the various
rookeries of the southern states, wandering as far north as the Ohio
river, and touching southern Indiana and southern Illinois. Two were
seen as far north as southern South Dakota. They are now scarcely
common even in the most favored localities in Louisiana and Texas,
being confined to the gulf states almost entirely, and even there
greatly restricted locally.
Like many of their near relatives, the herons, the ibises not only
roost together in rookeries, but they also nest in greater or less
communities. Before their ranks were so painfully thinned by the
plume-hunters, these nesting communities contained hundreds and even
thousands of individuals. But now only small companies can be found in
out-of-the-way places.
The nest is built upon the mangrove bushes or upon the broken reeds
and rushes in the swamps, and is said to be rather more carefully
and compactly built than are the herons' nests. The eggs are three
or four, rarely five in number, and are laid about May 1 in many
localities, later in others. They appear large for the bird. In shape
they are usually rather long ovate, and in color are gray or ashy-blue,
irregularly and rather heavily blotched and spotted with reddish and
umber browns of various shades. Some specimens are very pretty.
The story of their great abundance, persecution, rapid decline, and
almost death, if written, would read like some horrible nightmare.
Confident in the apparent security of their ancestral gathering-places,
they fell an easy prey to the avaricious plume-hunter who, from some
vantage-point, used his almost noiseless light rifle or air-gun with
deadly effect, tallying his victims by the hundred daily. We are
sometimes led to wonder if there is anything so sacred as money.
We might be able to derive some comfort from the thinning ranks of
many of our birds, perhaps, if we could be sure that when these were
gone the work of extermination would cease. But when one species
disappears another, less attractive before, will be set upon, and thus
the crusade, once begun, will finally extend to each in turn. This is
not theory but fact. Nor will the work of extermination cease with the
demand for plumes. Not until repeated refusals of offered plumes have
impressed upon the mind of the hunter the utter futility of further
activity in this line will he seek some other occupation. It is a shame
upon us that killing birds should ever have become an occupation of
anyone. A strong public sentiment against feather adornments will yet
save from destruction many of our native birds. Can we not arouse it?