ge would come flying in over the dark
forest high in air and then volplane to the little pond where, in the
heavily massed bushes, their nests were thickly clustered. With vivid
distinctness he imitated the cackling notes of the {150} old birds as
they settled on their nests, and the shrill cries of the little ones,
as on unsteady legs they reached upward for their food.

Keen indeed was the disappointment that awaited me. With great care we
approached the spot and with caution worked our way to the very edge of
the pond. For many minutes we waited, but no life was visible about
the buttonwood bushes which held the nests--no old birds like fragments
of fleecy clouds came floating in over the dark canopy of cypress
trees. My companion, wise in the ways of hunters, as well as the
habits of birds, suspected something wrong and presently found nearby
the body of an Egret lying on the ground, its back, from which the skin
bearing the fatal aigrettes had been torn, raw and bloody. A little
farther along we came to the remains of a second and then a third, and
still farther on, a fourth. As we approached, we were warned of the
proximity of each ghastly spectacle by the hideous buzzing of green
flies swarming over the lifeless forms of the parent birds.

{151}

At one place, beneath a small palmetto bush, we found the body of an
Egret which the hunters had overlooked. Falling to the ground sorely
wounded, it had escaped its enemies by crawling to this hiding-place.
Its appearance showed the suffering which it had endured. The ground
was bare where in its death agonies it had beaten the earth with its
wings. The feathers on the head and neck were raised and the bill was
buried among the blood-clotted feathers of its breast. On the higher
ground we discovered some straw and the embers of a campfire, giving
evidence of the recent presence of the plume hunters. Examination of
the nests over the pond revealed numerous young, many of which were now
past suffering; others, however, were still alive and were faintly
calling for food which the dead parents could never bring. Later
inquiry developed the fact that the plumes taken from the backs of
these parent birds were shipped to one of the large millinery houses in
New York, where in due time they were placed on the market as
"aigrettes," and of course {152} subsequently purchased and worn by
fashionable women, as well as by young and old women of moderate
incomes, who