Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1893 — Aigrettes as Ornaments. [ARTICLE]

Aigrettes as Ornaments.

The aigrette is a tuft of graceful thin feathers taken from a kind of heron called egret; and not only are these poor birds killed expressly to furnish ornaments for ladies’ bonnets and hair, but they are killed at the time when they ought especially to be protected—namely, during the breeding season. They build their nests close together, and the feather-hunters look for these breeding-places. The best time to attack them is when the young birds are fully fledged but not yet able to fly; for at that time the solicitude of the parent birds is greatest, and, forgetful of their own danger, they are most readily made victims. They hover in a crowd over the heads of their despoilers, their boldness making it as easy as possible to shoot them down; and when the slaughter is finished and the few handfuls of coveted feathers plucked out, the poor birds are left in a heap to fester in the sun in sight of their orphaned young, that cry for food and are not fed.—[Animal World. Ali. tub mountain sheep in Colorado are owned by the state and carefully protected. The penalty of slaying a mountain sheep in Colorado is 10 years in the penitentiary. This is probably the severest game law on the statute book oi any state, but it is occasionally violated.