WWAS the question which confronted the fair sex this year when about to select their Easter hats or bonnets.

"Say flowers," pleaded the members of the Audubon Society, and from the many fair heads, innocent of feather adornment, which bowed before the lily-decked altars on Easter morning, one must believe that the plea was heeded.

Nearly every large house in Chicago, dealing wholly or in part in millinery goods, was visited by a member of the Audubon Society, says the Tribune. One man who sells nothing but millinery declared that the bird protective association was nothing but a fad, and that it would soon be dead. He further said he would sell anything for hat trimming, be it flesh, fish, or fowl, that a woman would wear.

Touching the question whether the beautiful Terns and Gulls, with their soft gray and white coloring, were to be popular, it was said that they would not be used as much as formerly. One salesman said that he would try, where a white bird was requested, to get the purchaser to accept a domestic Pigeon, which was just as beautiful as the sea and lake birds named.

The milliners all agree that the Snowy Egret is doomed to extermination within a short time, its plumes, so fairy-like in texture, rendering its use for trimming as desirable in summer as in winter.

As to the birds of prey, people interested in our feathered friends are as desirous of saving them from destruction as they are to shield the song birds. There are only a few of the Hawks and Owls which are injurious, most of them in fact being beneficial. Hundreds of thousands of these birds were killed for fashion's sake last fall, so that this coming season the farmer will note the absence of these birds by the increased number of rat, mouse, and rabbit pests with which he will have to deal.

It is a matter of congratulation, then, to the members of the Audubon Society to know that their efforts in Chicago have not been wholly fruitless, inasmuch as the majority of dealers in women's headgear are willing to confess that they have felt the effect of the bird protective crusade.

Dr. H. M. Wharton, pastor of Brantly Baptist Church, Baltimore, has always been a bitter opponent of those who slaughter birds for millinery purposes. "It is wholesale murder," said he, "and I am delighted that a bill is to be offered in the Maryland legislature for the protection of song birds. I have commented from the pulpit frequently upon the evil of women wearing birds' wings or bodies of birds on their hats, for I have long considered it a cruel custom."

"Birds are our brothers and sisters," said the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the Unity Congregation at Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburg, a few weeks ago. "If we are children of God, so are they. The same intelligence, life, and love that is in us is in them. The difference between us is not in kind, but in degree."

"How is this murderous vanity of women to be overcome?" asks Our Animal Friends. "We confess we do not know; but this we do know, that good women can make such displays of vanity disreputable, and that good women ought to do it."