Our savage ancestors depended largely for food upon animals, birds, and fish which they obtained. They used the skins and furs for clothing and the plumes for decorating themselves. They allowed no part of the bodies of the animals they killed to go to waste.

We do not now have to depend upon the wild creatures for food, because our flocks and herds supply all that we require. But Dame Fashion has decreed that furs and feathers are still the proper thing to wear. Thus it has come about that those animals that have soft, furry coats and those birds that have bright plumage are hunted more eagerly now than they were long ago when food was the most important thing.

The demand for furs has always been great and the trapping industry has employed thousands of men ever since our land was discovered, but in recent years feathers have become almost as important. No region where fur-bearing animals have their lairs, or birds of beautiful plumage have their nests, is too far away or too difficult for the hunters and trappers to go and hunt.

The business of killing wild creatures for money makes beasts out of men and has led to most heartless cruelties. The savage, hunting for food, kills his prey at once; but the fur trapper with a circuit which takes sometimes a week to cover often has to leave his prey, tortured in the traps, until it starves to death.

If the wearer of that handsome warm fur coat could know what was, perhaps, the story of the wild creature to which it once belonged, would she enjoy it so much? Could the wearer of that gay hat, for the making of which not only a mother bird, but perhaps a whole family of little ones, gave up their lives, take so much pleasure in it if she knew the history of its plumes?

It is not the desire for warm furs about our necks or for beautiful feathers in our hats that is wrong. It is the needless suffering that those who hunt and trap cause the wild creatures that we should be ashamed of and insist upon having stopped.

The work of the trapper and hunter is nearly done. These men have despoiled for money the life of a whole continent in a few short years. The fur-bearing animals, if hunted in moderation, would have continued to people the wilds for all time to come. But neither the wearer of furs nor the hunter has given one thought to their preservation.

In the getting of bird plumage for millinery purposes we find cruelties practiced which are almost beyond our belief. The lowest savage that ever lived on the earth could be no worse than many of our bird hunters.

Birds have habits which make them easier to kill than fur-bearing animals. Although the modern fashion for feathers began less than fifty years ago, the birds that afford bright and graceful plumage have already been nearly exterminated. Now most of them are protected in our country, and the sale of feathers from other countries is prohibited in our markets. But there are some places where the law is not enforced, as well as many other countries where there are no laws, and thoughtless women still wear plumes. To supply the demands of fashion all the remote lands as well as islands of the sea are being searched.

The slaughter began with the bright-colored songbirds, terns, gulls, herons, egrets, and flamingos. Then it extended to other sea birds, including the albatross, to bright-colored tropical birds, and to the wonderful birds of paradise. How true is the following statement made in a millinery store:

"You had better take the feather for twelve dollars," said the clerk, "for it is very cheap at that price. These feathers are becoming scarce and very soon we shall not be able to secure them."

Here is milady's beautiful cape glistening with all the colors of the rainbow. Of what is this gorgeous thing made? Would you believe it possible that it is formed entirely of humming birds' skins, with the heads and long, slender bills? Perhaps a thousand of the tiny birds were sacrificed that some woman might have a beautiful cape. Does it seem possible that any gentlewoman could wear this cape, who had any realization of the tragedies that had to take place in humming-bird life in order that it might be made? Could she wear this cape if she knew of the forsaken nests and the hundreds of dying young ones waiting for the mothers that never returned?

But more terrible, if anything, than the story of the humming-bird cape is the story of the delicate egret plumes on yonder hat. They once adorned the mother bird at nesting time in some far marsh. The feathers are almost perfect at this time, and to get them the bird must be killed. Each bunch of egret feathers represents a family tragedy,—a nest of little birds left to die, because the mother has been sacrificed to satisfy the demands of fashion.

The plume hunters invade the nesting places of the egrets, herons, and flamingos, often leaving not a single bird in what were once happy colonies, except the starving little ones. Millions of these plumes have been obtained along our seacoasts and about the interior lakes and marshes. Is it any wonder that the egrets are nearly extinct as a result of this merciless slaughter?

Now, when it is almost too late, protection has been given these beautiful birds. Bird refuges have been established at different favorable points along the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the Klamath and Malheur Lake regions of Oregon. These refuges are watched over by wardens, and we hope that the birds inhabiting them will thus be enabled to increase and again fill the almost forsaken marshes.

In our plea for the protection of the birds of attractive plumage, we must not forget those of the tropical jungles. Remote as many of these jungles are, the plumage hunter is devastating them already. The bird of paradise, found in the East India islands, will soon be extinct unless protected.