Notes

Abstract

WITH the intention of saving the lives of numberless birds of bright plumage slaughtered in foreign lands for no better purpose than unnatural decoration, a “Bill to prohibit the importation of the plumage of birds and the sale or possession of plumage illegally imported” has again been introduced in the House of Commons, and on April 13 passed the second reading by a majority of 143 votes against 25. The scope of the Bill is wide. As it stands, it prohibits the importation of all birds' plumes excepting those of African ostriches and eider-ducks, of birds imported alive, of birds ordinarily used in the United Kingdom as articles of diet, and such plumes as have fteeri imported by a passenger for personal use. A special proviso allows the Board of Trade to grant a licence permitting the importation of plumage “for any natural history or other museum, or for the purpose of scientific research, or for any other special purpose.” Opinions in the House of Commons varied as to the probable efficiency of the Bill in its aim of protecting decorative birds. It is obvious that such a decree cannot approach in effectiveness measures of strict protection which might be enforced in the countries which the birds themselves inhabit, nor can it compare with a possible international agreement regulating the use of bird-plumages, but in at least two ways it should make for a reduction of the massacre of birds. In the first place, it should to a very great extent banish the use of imported birds' plumes for decoration in the United Kingdom, and to that extent the actual demand would be reduced. It may also, by dislocating the centre of dispersal in London, permanently disorganise the world-market, and so reduce opportunity for the disposal of skins, and with this the activities of the plume-hunters. In the second place, the moral effect of the final adoption of the Bill would probably be great, and other countries would follow the United Kingdom in endeavouring to protect, without as well as within their own boundaries, “birds attractive in appearance,” and perhaps it may be added (as the Nebraskan law adds) “cheerful in song.”