. Birds and nature . slight rifle or air-gun with deadly effect,tallying his victims by the hundred are sometimes led to wonder ifthere is anything so sacred as money. \ye might be able to derive some com-fort from the thinning ranks of many ofour birds, perhaps, if we could be surethat when these were gone the work ofextermination would cease. But whenone species disappears another, less at-tractive before, will be set upon, andthus the crusade, once begun, will finallyextend to each in turn. This is not the-ory but fact. Nor will the work of ex-termination cease with the demand forp
. Birds and nature . slight rifle or air-gun with deadly effect,tallying his victims by the hundred are sometimes led to wonder ifthere is anything so sacred as money. \ye might be able to derive some com-fort from the thinning ranks of many ofour birds, perhaps, if we could be surethat when these were gone the work ofextermination would cease. But whenone species disappears another, less at-tractive before, will be set upon, andthus the crusade, once begun, will finallyextend to each in turn. This is not the-ory but fact. Nor will the work of ex-termination cease with the demand forplumes. Not until repeated refusals-ofoffered plumes have impressed upon themind of the hunter the utter futility offurther activity in this line will he seeksome other occupation. It is a shameupon us that killing birds should everhave become an occupation of anyone. Astrong public sentiment against featheradornments will yet save from destruc-tion many of our native birds. Can we; not arouse it? ONE AUDUBON ^ IVE HUNDRED invitationswere sent out for a novel re-ception by the WisconsinAudubon Society a while of the directors lent a large, hand-some house, and six milliners wereinvited to send hats unadorned withaigrettes or birds. Ostrich plumes,quills and cocks-tails were not dis-barred. Twenty-five other millinersapplied for space, everybody went,and a great many tastefully trimmedhats were sold. People who had neverbefore heard of the Audubon Societybecame, through the newspaper reportsof the affair, greatly interested in itsobject, and the society itself greatlyencouraged through the fact that bytheir hats and bonnets many of thebest people of Milwaukee wereready to proclaim it no longer goodform to wear the plumes or bodies ofwild birds. Certificates of heartlessness, awriter in Our Dumb Animals calls themand we know of no better appellationto apply. Women of fashion, says thesame writer, have been urged to usethe power which they possess—and itis a pow
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