THE TRAFFIC IN FEATHERS
The traffic in the feathers of American birds for the millinery trade
began to develop strongly about 1880 and assumed its greatest
proportions during the next ten years. The wholesale milliners whose
business and pleasure it was to supply these ornaments for women's hats
naturally turned for their supply first to those species of birds most
easily procured. Agents were soon going about the country looking for
men to kill birds for their feathers, and circulars and hand bills
offering attractive prices for feathers of various kinds were mailed
broadcast. The first great onslaughts were made on the breeding
colonies of sea birds along the Atlantic Coast. On Long Island there
were some very large communities of Terns and these were {141} quickly
raided. The old birds were shot down and the unattended young
necessarily were left to starve. Along the coast of Massachusetts the
sea birds suffered a like fate. Maine with its innumerable out-lying
rocky islands was, as it is to-day, the chief nursery of the Herring
Gulls and Common Terns of the North Atlantic. This fact was soon
discovered and thousands were slaughtered every summer, their wings cut
off, and their bodies left to rot among the nests on the rookeries.
_War on the Sea Swallows._--During a period of seven years more than
500,000 Terns', or Sea Swallows', skins were collected in spring and
summer in the sounds of North and South Carolina. These figures I
compiled from the records and accounts given me by men who did the
killing. Their method was to fit out small sailing vessels on which
they could live comfortably and cruise for several weeks; in fact, they
were usually out during the entire three months of the nesting period.
That was the time of year that offered best rewards for such work, for
then the birds' {142} feathers bore their brightest lustre, and the
birds being assembled on their nesting grounds they could easily be
shot in great numbers. After the birds were killed the custom was to
skin them, wash off the blood stains with benzine, and dry the feathers
with plaster of Paris. Arsenic was used for curing and preserving the
skins. Men in this business became very skilful and rapid in their
work, some being able to prepare as many as one hundred skins in a day.
Millinery agents from New York would sometimes take skinners with them
and going to a favourable locality would employ local gunners to shoot
the birds which they in turn would skin. In this way one New York
woman with some assistants collected and brought back from Cobbs'
Island, Virginia, 10,000 skins of the Least Tern in a single season.
In the swamps of Florida word was carried that the great millinery
trade of the North was bidding high for the feathers of those plume
birds which gave life and beauty even to its wildest regions. It was
not long before the cypress fastnesses were echoing {143} to the roar
of breech-loaders, and cries of agony and piles of torn feathers became
common sounds and sights even in the remotest depths of the Everglades.
What mattered it if the semi-tropical birds of exquisite plumage were
swept from existence, if only the millinery trade might prosper!
The milliners were not content to collect their prey only in obscure
and little-known regions, for a chance was seen to commercialize the
small birds of the forests and fields. Warblers, Thrushes, Wrens, in
fact all those small forms of dainty bird life which come about the
home to cheer the hearts of men and women and gladden the eyes of
little children, commanded a price if done to death and their pitiful
remains shipped to New York.
[Illustration: Terns, Formerly Sought by the Feather Trade]
Taxidermists, who made a business of securing birds and preparing their
skins, found abundant opportunity to ply their trade. Never had the
business of taxidermy been so profitable as in those days. For
example, in the spring of 1882 some of the feather agents established
themselves at points {144} on the New Jersey coast, and sent out word
to residents of the region that they would buy the bodies of freshly
killed birds of all kinds procurable. The various species of Terns,
which were then abundant on the Jersey coast, offered the best
opportunity {145} for profit, for not only were they found in vast
numbers, but they were comparatively easy to shoot. Ten cents apiece
was the price paid, and so lucrative a business did the shooting of
these birds become that many baymen gave up their usual occupation of
sailing pleasure parties and became gunners. These men often earned as
much as one hundred dollars a week for their skill with the shotgun.
[Illustration: A Christmas dinner for the birds. Note the Song Sparrow
on a Sunflower head and a Chickadee weighing himself. Photographed by
Mrs. Granville Pike]
It is not surprising that at the end of the season a local observer
reported: "One cannot help noticing now the scarcity of Terns on the
New Jersey coast, and it is all owing to their merciless destruction."
One might go further and give the sickening details of how the birds
were swept from the mud flats about the mouth of the Mississippi and
the innumerable shell lumps of the Chandeleurs and the Breton Island
region; how the Great Lakes were bereft of their feathered life, and
the swamps of the Kankakee were invaded; how the White Pelicans,
Western Grebes, Caspian Terns, and California Gulls of the West were
butchered and their skinned {146} bodies left in pyramids to fester in
the sun. One might recount stories of Bluebirds and Robins shot on the
very lawns of peaceful, bird-loving citizens of our Eastern States in
order that the feathers might be spirited away to feed the insatiable
appetite of the wholesale milliner dealers. Never have birds been worn
in this country in such numbers as in those days. Ten or fifteen small
song birds' skins were often sewed on a single hat!
_What the Ladies Wore._--In 1886 Dr. Frank M. Chapman walked through
the shopping district of New York City on his way home, two afternoons
in succession, and carefully observed the feather decorations on the
hats of the women he chanced to meet. The result of his observation,
as reported to _Forest and Stream_, shows that he found in common use
as millinery trimming many highly esteemed birds as the following list
which he wrote down at the time will serve to show:
Robins, Thrushes, Bluebirds, Tanagers, Swallows, {147} Warblers,
Waxwings, Bobolinks, Larks, Orioles, Doves, and Woodpeckers.
In all, the feathers of at least forty species were discernible.
In commenting on his trips of inspection, Doctor Chapman wrote: "It is
evident that in proportion to the number of hats seen, the list of
birds given is very small, for in most cases mutilation rendered
identification impossible. Thus, while one afternoon seven hundred
hats were counted and on them but twenty birds recognized, five hundred
and forty-two were decorated with feathers of some kind. Of the one
hundred and fifty-eight remaining, seventy-two were worn by young or
middle-aged ladies, and eighty-six by ladies in mourning or elderly
ladies."
This was a period when people seemed to go mad on the subject of
wearing birds and feathers. They were used for feminine adornment in
almost every conceivable fashion. Here are two quotations from New
York daily papers of that time, only the names {148} of the ladies are
changed: "Miss Jones looked extremely well in white with a whole nest
of sparkling, scintillating birds in her hair which it would have
puzzled an ornithologist to classify," and again: "Mrs. Robert Smith
had her gown of unrelieved black looped up with black birds; and a
winged creature, so dusky that it could have been intended for nothing
but a Crow, reposed among the curls and braids of her hair."
Ah, those were the halcyon days of the feather trade! Now and then a
voice cried out at the slaughter, or hands were raised at the sight of
the horrible shambles, but there were no laws to prevent the killing
nor was there any strong public sentiment to demand its cessation,
while on the other hand more riches yet lay in store for the hunter and
the merchant. There were no laws whatever to protect these birds, nor
was there for a time any man of force to start a crusade against the
evil.
_The Story of the Egrets._--The most shameless blot on the history of
America's treatment of the {149} wild birds is in connection with the
White Egrets. It is from the backs of these birds that the "aigrettes"
come, so often seen on the hats of the fashionable. Years ago, as a
boy in Florida, I first had an opportunity to observe the methods
employed by the feather hunters in collecting these aigrettes which are
the nuptial plumes of the bird and are to be found on birds only in the
spring. As a rare treat I was permitted to accept the invitation
extended by a squirrel hunter to accompany him to the nesting haunts of
a colony of these birds. Away we went in the gray dawn of a summer
morning through the pine barrens of southern Florida until the heavy
swamps of Horse Hammock were reached. I remember following with
intense interest the description given by my companion of how these
birds with magnificent snowy plumage would come flying in over the dark
forest high in air and then volplane to the little pond where, in the
heavily massed bushes, their nests were thickly clustered. With vivid
distinctness he imitated the cackling notes of the {150} old birds as
they settled on their nests, and the shrill cries of the little ones,
as on unsteady legs they reached upward for their food.
Keen indeed was the disappointment that awaited me. With great care we
approached the spot and with caution worked our way to the very edge of
the pond. For many minutes we waited, but no life was visible about
the buttonwood bushes which held the nests--no old birds like fragments
of fleecy clouds came floating in over the dark canopy of cypress
trees. My companion, wise in the ways of hunters, as well as the
habits of birds, suspected something wrong and presently found nearby
the body of an Egret lying on the ground, its back, from which the skin
bearing the fatal aigrettes had been torn, raw and bloody. A little
farther along we came to the remains of a second and then a third, and
still farther on, a fourth. As we approached, we were warned of the
proximity of each ghastly spectacle by the hideous buzzing of green
flies swarming over the lifeless forms of the parent birds.
{151}
At one place, beneath a small palmetto bush, we found the body of an
Egret which the hunters had overlooked. Falling to the ground sorely
wounded, it had escaped its enemies by crawling to this hiding-place.
Its appearance showed the suffering which it had endured. The ground
was bare where in its death agonies it had beaten the earth with its
wings. The feathers on the head and neck were raised and the bill was
buried among the blood-clotted feathers of its breast. On the higher
ground we discovered some straw and the embers of a campfire, giving
evidence of the recent presence of the plume hunters. Examination of
the nests over the pond revealed numerous young, many of which were now
past suffering; others, however, were still alive and were faintly
calling for food which the dead parents could never bring. Later
inquiry developed the fact that the plumes taken from the backs of
these parent birds were shipped to one of the large millinery houses in
New York, where in due time they were placed on the market as
"aigrettes," and of course {152} subsequently purchased and worn by
fashionable women, as well as by young and old women of moderate
incomes, who sacrifice much for this millinery luxury.
There were at that time to be found in Florida many hundreds of
colonies of these beautiful birds, but their feathers commanded a large
price and offered a most tempting inducement for local hunters to shoot
them. Many of the men of the region were poor, and the rich harvest
which awaited them was very inviting. At that time gunners received
from seventy-five cents to one dollar and a quarter for the "scalp" of
each bird, which ordinarily contained forty or more plume feathers.
These birds were not confined to Florida, but in the breeding season
were to be found in swampy regions of the Atlantic Coast as far north
as New Jersey, some being discovered carrying sticks for their nests on
Long Island.
Civilized nations to-day decry any method of warfare which results in
the killing of women and children, but the story of the aigrette trade
deals with the slaughter of innocents by the slow process of {153}
starvation, a method which history shows has never been followed by
even the most savage race of men dealing with their most hated enemies.
This war of extermination which was carried forward unchecked for years
could mean but one thing, namely, the rapid disappearance of the Egrets
in the United States. As nesting birds, they have disappeared from New
Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and also those States of the central
Mississippi Valley where they were at one time to be found in great
numbers.
_Amateur Feather Hunters._--Quite aside from the professional millinery
feather hunter there should be mentioned the criminal slaughter of
birds which has been indulged in by individuals who have killed them
for the uses of their own lady friends. I know one Brown Pelican
colony which was visited by a tourist who shot four hundred of the big,
harmless, inoffensive creatures in order to get a small strip of skin
on either side of the body. He explained to his boatmen, who did the
skinning for him, that he was curious to see if these strips of skin
with their feathers would not {154} make an interesting coat for his
wife. The birds killed were all caring for their young in the nests at
the time he and his hirelings shot them.
There was a few years ago, in a Georgia city, an attorney who accepted
the aigrette "scalps" of twenty-seven Egrets from a client who was
unable to pay cash for a small service rendered. He told me he had
much pleasure in distributing these among his lady friends. Another
man went about the neighbourhood hunting male Baltimore Orioles until
he had shot twelve, as he wanted his sisters to have six each for their
Sunday hats. The Roseate Spoonbill of the Southern States was never
extensively killed for the millinery trade, and yet to-day it is
rapidly approaching extinction. The feathers begin to fade in a short
time and for this reason have little commercial value, but the amateur
Northern tourist feather hunter has not known this, or disregarded the
fact, and has been the cause of the depletion of the species in the
United States. Almost every one could cite instances similar to the
above, for there are many people in the {155} United States who are
guilty of taking part in the destruction of birds for millinery
purposes. In addition to the feathers of American birds already
mentioned the feathers of certain foreign species have been very much
in demand.
_Paradise Plumes_--One of the most popular foreign feathers brought to
this country is the Paradise. There are at least nine species of
Paradise Birds found in New Guinea and surrounding regions that furnish
this product. The males are adorned with long, curved delicate
feathers which are gorgeously coloured. As in the case of all other
wild birds there is no way of getting the feathers except by killing
the owners. Much of this is done by natives who shoot them down with
little arrows blown through long hollow reeds. The high price paid for
these feathers has been the occasion of the almost total extinction of
some of the species, as indicated by the decreased number of feathers
offered at the famous annual London Feather Sales. Travellers in the
regions inhabited by the birds speak of the {156} distressing effect of
the continuous calls of the bereft females as they fly about in the
forests during the mating season. As a high-priced adornment the
Paradise is the one rival of the famous aigrette.
_Maribou._--The Maribou which has been fashionable for a number of
years past comes principally from the Maribou Stork of Africa. These
white, fluffy, downlike feathers grow on the lower underpart of the
body of the Maribou Stork. These birds are found in the more open
parts of the country. Their food consists of such small forms of life
as may readily be found in the savannas and marshes. To some extent
they also feed like vultures on the remains of larger animals.
_Pheasants._--The long tail feathers of Pheasants have been much in
demand by the millinery trade during the past ten years. Although
several species contribute to the supply, the majority are from the
Chinese Pheasant, or a similar hybrid descendent known as the English
Ring-necked Pheasant. Many of these feathers have been collected in
Europe, {157} where the birds are extensively reared and shot on great
game preserves; vast numbers, however, have come from China. Oddly
enough in that country the birds were originally little disturbed by
the natives, who seem not to care for meat. Then came the demand for
feathers, and the birds have since been killed for this purpose to an
appalling extent.
_Numidie._--This popular hat decoration suddenly appeared on our market
in great numbers a few years ago. It is taken from the Manchurian
Eared Pheasant of northern China. Unless the demand for these feathers
is overcome in some way there will undoubtedly come a day in the
not-distant future when the name of this bird must be added to the
lengthening list of species that have been sacrificed to the greed of
the shortsightedness of man.
_Goura._--The fashionable and expensive hat decoration which passes
under the trade name of Goura consists of the slender feathers, usually
four or five inches long with a greatly enlarged tip, that grows out
fanlike along a line down the centre of the head {158} and nape of
certain large Ground Pigeons that inhabit New Guinea and adjacent
islands. Perhaps the best-known species is the Crowned Pigeon.
There is a special trade name for the feathers of almost every kind of
bird known in the millinery business. Thus there is Coque for Black
Cock, Cross Aigrettes for the little plumes of the Snowy Egret, and
Eagle Quills from the wings not only of Eagles, but of Bustards,
Pelicans, Albatrosses, Bush Turkeys, and even Turkey Buzzards. The
feathers of Macaws in great numbers are used in the feather trade, as
well as hundreds of thousands of Hummingbirds, and other
bright-coloured birds of the tropics.
[Illustration: Crowned Pigeon That Furnishes the Goura of the Feather
Trade]
_Women's Love for Feathers._--One of the most coveted and easily
acquired feminine adornments has been feathers. At first these were
probably taken almost wholly from birds killed for food, but later,
when civilization became more complex and resourceful, millinery
dealers searched the ends of the earth to supply the demands of
discriminating women. The chief reason why it has been so difficult
{160} to induce educated and cultivated women of this age to give up
the heartless practice of wearing feathers seems to be the fact that
the desire and necessity for adornment developed through the centuries
has become so strong as to be really an inherent part of their natures.
It is doubtful if many people realize how strong and all-powerful this
desire for conforming to fashion in the matter of dress sits enthroned
in the hearts of tens of thousands of good women.
[Illustration: An Egret, bearing "aigrettes," in attendance on her
young]
There was a time when I thought that any woman with human instincts
would give up the wearing of feathers at once upon being told of the
barbaric cruelties involved in their acquisition. But I have learned
to my amazement that such is not the case. Not long ago I received one
of the shocks of my life. Somewhat over two years ago a young woman
came to work in our office. I supposed she had never heard, except
casually, of the great scourge of the millinery trade in feathers.
Since that time, however, she has been in daily touch with all the
important efforts made in this country and abroad to {161} legislate
the traffic out of existence, to guard from the plume hunters the
colonies of Egrets and other water birds, and to educate public
sentiment to a proper appreciation of the importance of bird
protection. She has typewritten a four-hundred-page book on birds and
bird protection, has acknowledged the receipt of letters from the
wardens telling of desperate rifle battles that they have had with
poachers, and written letters to the widow of one of our agents shot to
death while guarding a Florida bird rookery. In the heat of campaigns
she has worked overtime and on holidays. I have never known a woman
who laboured more conscientiously or was apparently more interested in
the work. Frequently her eyes would open wide and she would express
resentment when reports reached the office of the atrocities
perpetrated on wild birds by the heartless agents of the feather trade.
Recently she married and left us. Last week she called at the office,
looking very beautiful and radiant. After a few moments' conversation
she approached the subject which {162} evidently lay close to her
heart. Indicating a cluster of paradise aigrettes kept in the office
for exhibition purposes, she looked me straight in the face and in the
most frank and guileless manner asked me to sell them to her for her
new hat! The rest of the day I was of little service to the world.
What was the good of all the long years of unceasing effort to induce
women to stop wearing bird feathers, if this was a fair example of
results? Of all the women I knew, there was no one who had been in a
position to learn more of the facts regarding bird slaughter than this
one; yet it seems that it had never entered her mind to make a personal
application of the lesson she had learned. The education and restraint
of legislative enactments were all meant for other people.
_Ostrich Feathers Are Desirable._--How is this deep-seated desire and
demand for feathers to be met? Domestic fowls will in part supply it;
but for the finer ornaments we must turn to the Ostrich, the only bird
in the world which has been domesticated {163} exclusively for its
feather product. These birds were formerly found wild in Arabia,
southwestern Persia, and practically the whole of Africa. In
diminishing numbers they are still to be met with in these regions,
especially in the unsettled parts of Africa north of the Orange River.
From early times the plumes of these avian giants have been in demand
for head decorations, and for centuries the people of Asia and Africa
killed the birds for this purpose. They were captured chiefly by means
of pitfalls, for a long-legged bird which in full flight can cover
twenty-five feet at a stride is not easily overtaken, even with the
Arabs' finest steeds.
So far as there is any record, young Ostriches were first captured and
enclosed with a view of rearing them for profit in the year 1857. This
occurred in South Africa. During the years which have since elapsed,
the raising of Ostriches and the exportation of their plumes has become
one of the chief business enterprises of South Africa. Very naturally
people in other parts of the world wished to engage in a {164} similar
enterprise when they saw with what success the undertaking was crowned
in the home country of the Ostrich. A few hundred fine breeding birds
and a considerable number of eggs were purchased by adventurous spirits
and exported, with the result that Ostrich farms soon sprang up in
widely separated localities over the earth. The lawmakers of Cape
Colony looked askance at these competitors and soon prohibited Ostrich
exportation. Before these drastic measures were taken, however, a
sufficient number of birds had been removed to other countries to
assure the future growth of the industry in various regions of the
world. It was in 1882 that these birds were first brought to the
United States for breeding purposes. To-day there are Ostrich farms at
Los Angeles, San Diego, and San José, California; Hot Springs,
Arkansas; Jacksonville, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona, and elsewhere.
There is money to be made in the Ostrich business, for the wing and
tail plumes of this bird are as popular to-day for human adornment as
they were in the {165} days of Sheerkohf, the gorgeous lion of the
mountain. Even low-grade feathers command a good price for use in the
manufacture of boas, feather bands, trimming for doll's hats, and other
secondary purposes. When the time comes for plucking the feathers, the
Ostriches are driven one at a time into a V-shaped corral just large
enough to admit the bird's body and the workman. Here a long, slender
hood is slipped over his head and the wildest bird instantly becomes
docile. Evidently he regards himself as effectively hidden and secure
from all the terrors of earth. There is no pain whatever attached to
the taking of Ostrich feathers, for they are merely clipped from the
bird by means of scissors. A month or two later when the stubs of the
quills have become dry they are readily picked from the wings without
injury to the new feathers.
The Ostrich industry is good and it is worthy of encouragement. No
woman need fear that she is aiding in any way the destruction of birds
by wearing Ostrich plumes. There are many more of the birds {166} in
the world to-day than there were when their domestication first began,
and probably no wild African or Asiatic Ostriches are now shot or
trapped for their plumes. The product seen in our stores all comes
from strong, happy birds hatched and reared in captivity. Use of their
feathers does not entail the sacrifice of life, nor does it cause the
slightest suffering to the Ostrich; taking plumes from an Ostrich being
no more painful to the bird than shearing is to a sheep and does not
cause it half the alarm a sheep often exhibits at shearing time.
The call for feather finery rings so loudly in the hearts of women that
it will probably never cease to be heard, and it is the Ostrich--the
big, ungainly yet graceful Ostrich--which must supply the demand for
high-grade feathers of the future.
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