Abstract
AS is now well known, the United States Government has made the importation of birds' plumage penal, as well as prohibited the wearing of feathers. Austria and Germany are in accord with England as to the necessity of putting a stop to this nefarious traffic by similar laws. France and Belgium stand on the other side, for the plumassiers are so influential that it is hopeless for the Government of either of these countries even to propose such a protective Bill. The French plumassiers, however, now very uneasy at the trend of popular opinion in Europe and America, have attempted to ward off the severe blow which their trade would suffer if the Société d'Acclimatation were to sympathise with the movement, by securing their admission, in considerable numbers, to the membership of both that society and the Ligue Frangaise pour la Protection des Oiseaux. Successful so far, they next brought forward a project before the former society for the appointment of a “comité d'ornithologié économiqué,” similar to the one in England, with the avowed purpose of inquiring into the mass of evidence as to the destruction of birds brought before the English Parliament and the U.S. Congress, but the real object of which is the hope of checking the growing force of opinion against them on this question. It will be a matter of great satisfaction to all in sympathy with the movement in this country to learn that, at a meeting held in Paris on December 24, the ornithological section of the Acclimatisation Society of France, after giving careful and prolonged hearing to the plumassiers, were constrained to record that the arguments adduced before them were unable to modify the opinions hitherto held by bird protectors with regard to the plumage trade. Notwithstanding fierce opposition and grave discord raised by the plumassiers, the project for a committee was rejected, as no benefit from it could accrue to the protection of birds. The society declared also its conviction that the depositions which have led to the prohibition of the importation of birds' plumage to the United States are unimpeachable and trustworthy.
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The Importation of Birds' Plumage . Nature 92, 617 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/092617b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/092617b0