THE SLAUGHTER OF BIRDS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 43, 5 October 1911, Page 8

THE SLAUGHTER OF BIRDS.

It cannot be denied that a vast amount of unnecessary destruction is wrought among various species oi wild birds and animals by the demands of fashion for their plumes and pelts, says a Sydney journal. 'I bis is particularly the case in regard to the white heron, whose delicate plumage is obtained at the annual cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths by starvation among tho young egrets whoso parents have been killed for the sake of the long sprays known as “ospreys.” Tho Wild Life Preservation Society of Australia, in the belief that nothing but an ignorance of the facts can permit women to encourage a fashion of so unjustifiable nature, has addressed an appeal to all the musical and dramatic artistes at present in Sydney, including Madam Melba and Miss Ethel Irving, to exercise their influence and example in discountenancing the wearing of plumage entirely. Considering the enormous scope which the dyer and plume-maker have in creating the most beautiful plumage from the feathers ol the common domestic rooster there certainly seems to be little justification for the slaughter of wild birds. . Tho society is afraid that the present prohibition by the Customs of the importation of ospreys and other plumage is not having any effect whatever upon tho trade, and that these goods are either being illegally introduced, or supplied by tho sacrifice of larger mun)ers of local herons and other birds til an heretofore.