Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1887 — Spare the Birds. [ARTICLE]

Spare the Birds.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The ornithologifete of the country by careful estimates place the destruction of birds in the, United States for millinery purposes at 5,000,000 a year, or ten times more than the number of specimens extant in our scientific collections, private and public. At this rate they will soon be exterminated from American forests (and only the voice of the English ■ par row be heard in the land). The Boston Transcript says: “Some song birds of bright plumage having been seen recently in one of our suburbs, a ‘professional gunner’ shot ten of them for the milliners, from whom he cents a piece for his victims.” And all this butchery to gratify a senseless and barbarous taste handed down from our savage forefathers. Is there a more revolting sight than a woman’s head decorated with a piteous-looking bird, wntlimg“upon an arrow? The useless and wholesale slaughter of the “innocents” should be condemned from a commercial and agricultural as well as from a humanitarian stand-point. The alarming increase of this evil has necessitated the formation of societies whose mission is to awake public sentiment and lead to the proper legislation regarding it. In England there are two societies for the “preservation of birdsin Great Britain and all other parts of the World.” The Selborne Society, of London, organized by George Arthur Misgrave, appeals to British women to “Foreswear the wearing of bird skins.” Her Royal Highness the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein is the patroness of this society, and among its members are twenty ladies of title and also the Rev. T. O. Morris, Robert Browning, Sir Fredeiick Leighton and Lord Tennyson. A vear ago last April the Aububon Society of Pennsylvania was organized, and its membership to-day is 20,000. Miss A. C. Knight is President; N. E. Janney, vice-president. Miss Francis Ferguson, treasurer, and Martin V. B. Davis, secretary. The pledges are three in number. No. 1. I pledge myself not to kill, wound or capture any wild bird not used for food so long as I remain a member of the P. A. S., and I promise to dsscourage the same in others No. 2 relates to the robbing of nests and No. 3 is especially for ladies. “I pledge myself not to make use of the feathers of any wild birds as ornaments ot dress or household furniture, and by every means in my power to discourage their use for decorative purposes in others, ostrich feathers excepted.”