Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No 5, May 1899

<h2><SPAN name="THE_FEATHER_CRUSADE" id="THE_FEATHER_CRUSADE"></SPAN>THE FEATHER CRUSADE.</h2> <p class="ac">E. K. M.</p> <p>JUST as the Audubon societies and the appeals of humanitarians in general have had some effect in lessening the demand for the aigrette for millinery purposes, and their banishment, as officially announced, from the helmets of the British army, there springs up a new fashion which, if generally adopted, will prove very discouraging&mdash;especially to the birds.</p> <p>"She made a decided sensation last evening at the opera," says Miss Vanity's fond mamma. "Those blackbirds with outspread wings at either side of her head were simply fetching. They drew every lorgnette and every eye in the house upon her. Not a woman of fashion, or otherwise, I venture to say, will appear at a public function here-after without a pair of stuffed birds in her hair."</p> <p>A melancholy outlook truly, though as an onlooker expressed it, the effect of the spreading wings was vastly more grotesque than beautiful. The poor little blackbirds! Their destruction goes on without abatement.</p> <p>"I like the hat," said a gentle-looking little lady in a fashionable millinery establishment the other day, "but," removing it from her head, "those blackbirds must be removed and flowers put in their place."</p> <p>"A member of the Audubon Society, probably," queried the attendant, respectfully.</p> <p>"No," was the answer, "but for years the birds have been welcome visitors at our country place, great flocks of blackbirds, especially, making their homes in our trees. This year, and indeed the last, but few appeared, and we have in consequence no love for the hunters and little respect for the women who, for vanity's sake, make their slaughter one of commercial necessity and greed."</p> <p>'Tis said fashion is proof against the appeals of common sense or morality, and one must accept the statement as true when, in spite of all that has been said upon the subject, the Paris journals announce that "birds are to be worn more than ever and blouses made entirely of feathers are coming into fashion." The use of bird skins in Paris for one week represent the destruction of one million three hundred thousand birds; in London the daily importation ranges from three hundred to four hundred thousand. It is honestly asserted that, in the height of the season, fifty thousand bird skins are received in New York City daily.</p> <p>At the annual meeting of the Audubon Society of New York state a letter was read from Governor Roosevelt in which he said that he fully sympathized with the purpose of the society and that he could not understand how any man or woman could fail to exert all influence in support of its object.</p> <p>"When I hear of the destruction of a species," he added, "I feel just as if all the works of some great writer had perished; as if one had lost all instead of only a part of Polybius or Livy."</p> <p>Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke sent a letter in which he said the sight of an aigrette filled him with a feeling of indignation, and that the skin of a dead songbird stuck on the head of a tuneless woman made him hate the barbarism which lingers in our so-called civilization. Mr. Frank M. Chapman, at the same meeting, stated that the wide-spread use of the quills of the brown pelican for hat trimming was fast bringing about the extinction of that species.</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In front of my pew sits a maiden&mdash;</div> <div class="verse indent-2">A little brown wing in her hat,</div> <div class="verse">With its touches of tropical azure,</div> <div class="verse indent-2">And the sheen of the sun upon that.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Through the bloom-colored pane shines a glory</div> <div class="verse indent-2">By which the vast shadows are stirred,</div> <div class="verse">But I pine for the spirit and splendor</div> <div class="verse indent-2">That painted the wing of that bird.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The organ rolls down its great anthem,</div> <div class="verse indent-2">With the soul of a song it is blent,</div> <div class="verse">But for me, I am sick for the singing</div> <div class="verse indent-2">Of one little song that is spent.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The voice of the curate is gentle:</div> <div class="verse indent-2">"No sparrow shall fall to the ground;"</div> <div class="verse">But the poor broken wing on the bonnet</div> <div class="verse indent-2">Is mocking the merciful sound.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />