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 The Audubon Societies 129 owing to the legislative attention given bird protection, is the proposed agree- ment between the Millinery Merchants' Association and the various bird protec- tive organizations, which was published in the June issue of this magazine, the Editor requesting that opinions regarding the proposition be forwarded him for transmission to the aforesaid associa- tion. Owing to the fact of its being the vaca- tion season, it has been impossible to hear from all the Audubon Societies. The New England Societies — New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con- necticut, together with Wisconsin, stand firmly together and against the proposed agreement in toto : Connecticut and Wisconsin having expressed their objec- tions in detail through Mr. Willard G. Van Name and Prof. E. A. Birge, of the University of Wisconsin, respectively, while Mr. William Brewster, the President of the Massachusetts Society, a thorough scientist and an influential member of the American Ornithologists' Union, is also wholly opposed to the measure. He writes: "If any attempt is made to have this agreement accepted by the American Ornithologists' Union I shall use all the influence I possess to defeat it. * * * It does not seem to me to be so much a question of expediency as of absolute right and wrong. No such compromise is pos- sible. " From a political, as well as an ethical standpoint, it is difficult to believe that two opinions can be held about this matter, either by the American Orni- thologists' Union, representing the strictly scientfic, or the Audubon Societies, the more secular but equally logical side of bird protection. We should not criticise the milliners, who, having a perfectly good right as business men to protect their invested capital in any way not in I'iolation of the laze, seek to prevent the enactment of laws prejudicial to their own interests, by making an agreement to disarm those by whose influence the law is most surely, if slowly, drawing about their traffic. But should we not bring upon ourselves and our work deserved reproach if we became party to any such agree- ment? Almost all reforms must necessarily cause temporary inconvenience to some one, but that objection cannot be held against the bird-protective reform unless the suppression of the barbarous trade of the plume-hunter is objected to. The millinery trade can find ample scope for its capital and work for its employees in handling ostrich plumes and the feathers of numerous species of domesticated birds, the supply of which is as easily regulated as that of the barnyard fowl, and with the use of which no one will interfere. W'e are not seeking, as some suppose, to break up a bread-winning industry. The case may be summed up as follows : A certain number of importers, manufac- turers and dealers in raw and fancy feathers are wilhng to promise not to buy any more feathers of North American birds. They retain, however, the right to manufacture and sell all the plumage of such birds now on hand until such sale shall be stopped by a law or laws, z^'hich shall be approved by the A. O. U. and the Aitdid>o?i Societies and also do Justice to the trade ! In re- turn for this most curiously worded conces- sion, the A. O U. and the Audubon Socie- ties are asked to give a pledge to prevent the enactment of the very laws that shall terminate and fix the time when the per- mission to sell the feathers of the North American birds on hand shall end ! We are further asked to pledge ourselves not to interfere with the manufacture or selling of the plumage or skins of " edible birds, game birds killed in their season, and all birds which are not North Ameri- can. " What birds are inedible ? What is a North American bird ? Is a bird taken in Brazil during its winter sojourn an Ameri- can or a Brazilian bird ? Who is to settle this matter of citizenship, who furnish the birds with passports, who give them pro- tective papers of citizenship that the plume hunter shall respect ? It appears that there are some few peo- ple (merely enough to furnish the usual ex-