Now they are being surely and quickly put out of the world by the cruelty and thoughtlessness of House People--the particular kind of House People who wear women's hats and bonnets.
"Once these Egrets covered the southern lowlands like drifting snow--for they are beautifully white.

In the nesting season, when many birds are allowed some special attraction in the way of plumage, bunches of long, slender, graceful plumes grow on their backs between the shoulders and curl up over the tail.
"In an evil moment some woman, imitating the savages, used a bunch of these feathers to make a tuft upon her headgear.

From that day the spotless bird was doomed to martyrdom.

Egrets, as the plumes are called like the birds themselves, became a fashionable trimming for bonnets and have continued so to this day, in spite of law and argument; for many women seem to be savages still, notwithstanding their fine clothes and other signs of civilization.
"These Herons only wear their beautiful plumes in the nesting season, when it is the height of cruelty to kill birds of any kind, and this is what happens: When the nests, which are built of sticks in bushes and trees above the lagoons, are filled with young, as yet too feeble to take care of themselves, and the beautiful parents are busy flying to and fro, attending to the wants of their helpless nestlings, the plume-hunters glide among them noiselessly, threading the watercourses in an Indian dug-out or canoe, and when once within the peaceful colony, show themselves with bold brutality.

For well they know that the devoted parents will suffer death rather than leave their young in such danger.
"Shot upon shot rings out in repeated volleys, each followed in turn by the piteous cries of wounded birds, till the ground is strewn with hundreds of the dead and dying.