The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 4, 1900, Page 6

THE DAY CALL inter for egrets have talked with men who used to hunj egrets and herons in the marsh lands an bays of Peru, the United States of Colom- 4 Ecuador for the Paris and other Buropean markets, and they tell me that the birds have been so thoroughly wiped out down that way that it is a loss of time and money to try to get a living by hunting egrets and_herons. A millinery feather-buyer from Paris who came down to the City of Mexico last January told e that he will never come out this way more to buy feathers, for there were few good plumes to be had that it was ng proposition for him. He said that rm in Paris was going to turn its at- n to seeking its ornamental feather in Africa, but that it was by no that it could get >wn. ‘Ben- quoted spe- t has diminished hers are now =old entirely by t ien 1 went into getting the rs as a business I sold them at so b . e and so much for_smaller & e feathers. The Parisian r went h ornamental n feathers by ctice was quickly fol- Philadelphia — dealers. Under the t < aw there was a duty of . Al alorem on all my egret - = New York, but now they . of duty, and we hunters - difference. The pric: 1s_upon the con- the manner and T have to take ) ¢ sideration in selling £ of some 33000 or $1060 Mexieo and wait s I may get $24 an d $ an ounce for send the stock to Francisco I get $28 an es, if 1 am_dealt with to $11 for the common o T nsed to have some with some of the ather dealers of New York, I have learned to know ve made a reputation for s cheated. Tn 1884 o harvest of feath. s g to $4500, be- ally buyes phum in Philadelphia. = and feathers are dy y bring ™ 30 to 50 per cent looks over fine plume will er. A back- used with each re perceptble. hunter or seller has to put bit of fine work, for a shrewd find some defact in color, miness in the whole of a man’s < the price down $i00) or he seller raises A rumpus ceedings and acts independent. 7 est for one who is siness on the scalo v-five ounces of plumes £ small feathers. The That Is the 0ST FAMOUS HUNTER SUPPLYING PLUTES TO THE BON TON MILLINERS OF CREATION. From a Market Bunter Standpoint. best season I ever had was In 1882, when 1 had four good shooters at work for me among the lagoons of Nicaragua. 1 got about $6000 that vear clear after seven months’ work. I sold the whole feather crop to a buyer from Brussels, Belgium, that year and he paid me $30 an ounce for my finest plumes. “Only a very few feathers are avallable on the egret. On the heron there are three times as many, but heron feathers are worth Jess than half as much as egret feathers. The experienced feather buy= ers know the difference at a glance, and many feet away, too. It is useless to mix heron and egret feathers together and try to palm them off on a buyer that knows his business. A full-grown egret will yleld about one-fourth of an ounce of feathers and one-sixth of an ounce of plumes. None of the other feathers are touched, and it takes much experience for a_hunter 10 know just what will be marketable. All the available egret plumes are on the bird's back, just back of the tail, but the U orclous OF DANGER THE VICTI: FLARS AAZILy QUER-HEAD heron has marketable feathers om both the back and the breast. We generally reckon that an egret that is got without damage to the feathers is worth about, $3 20 and each heron $1 8. Although the ‘Wwholesale feather bhuyers are wonderfully encuns and shary with the hunters as to the different prices for the egret and heran feathers, there is almost universal deception of the consumers and the o eral public on these points. I have been in first-class millinery stores in San Fran- cisco, New York and other citles, and have seen heron feathers and plumes sold by apparently honest saleswomen for gen- urnevzgreu. have been_on Fifth and Madison avenues in New York, and it Is seldom that I have seen first-class egret plumes worn. I know, too, that many of the fashionable women whom I passed thought they were wearing the best egrets. “You want to hear about how we hunt egrets and herons? Well, we have to live on the outskirts of civilization when we 80 after these birds. For days and nights at a time we make our home in little row- boats, bullt canoe shape for fast travel- ing, and we lived among the marshes and Teeds of the lagoons and bays, under a flerce semi-tropic sky. It is the hardest sort of life, and no one, however robust, could keep it up for more than a few months at a time. The miasma of the ‘water and the poisonous atmosphere all about us at night soon fills one’s blood ‘with rheumatisni and fevers. We hunters take our potion of quinine and whisky at regular intervals several times a day. We have canned foods and metal boxes for our feathers and our ammunition in the boats with us. We use the best shotguns and No. 5 shot. which does effective work without mangling the birds. An egret hunter must be the foxiest kind of a hunter. “Talk about the artifice and skill of duck or squirrel hunting! Why, both are boy’s play by the side of shooting. egrets or herons for a living. These birds are the most cautious and wary of any I have ever known or heard of. I have known herons to even desert a whole nest of young because they saw an old hat lying near the reeds where the nest had been Made and their suspicions wera thereby Egrets seem to almost smell the presence of a man with a gun. I know of no decoy that could be used for egrets or herons, but even if it could once be used that would be the last of that trick in that locality. for by some sort of Free- masonry all the bird’s family and cousins for miles around would be warned of the delusion. A “When we go out for a fortnight's or a month’s shoot we never leave our boats even for an hour. We get our birds either at early crening or at the first break of day. We seldom get birds at evening and then at the following dawn. for at the report of a gun every egret or heron in the region flies 'strafght away d will not come back fo that particular t for four or flve days. ven then they return with wonderful caution. So we move from one part of a bay or lagoon midday, when the birds are off feeding at the shoals along the shore. We get our craft in position, one man In a boat, before 4 p. m., and conceal ourseives with reeds and foliage, just as duck hunters do. Along about 5 or 6 o'clock the birds come back to their nests and camping grounds. Then we watch our opportunity for shots, and by long expe- rience I have learned perfectly when it comes. Just at the proper moment 1 will shoot, and in a fraction of a second m hired’ shooters will follow with their guns., Generally 1 can get three or four successful shots at the frightened birds before they are out of range, for they are so casily frightened that they are power- less of flight for a moment and make good targets of themselves. Sometimes we get as many as fifteen birds at one evening's shooting, but more often the number Is seven or eight. Years ago, when egrets and herons were very plentiful in Central America, I have killed nine birds in as many shots before they got out of reach. When we have delivered our volleys and the unharmed birds have flown away we row about and gather the harvest. = Ex- treme care must be exercised to get the feathers and plumes as free as possible from discolored water or the stain of weeds. Every week we have away the carcass of - an egret because the’ feathers or plumes ::: t?lz?dn stained or twisted out of shape. ‘After we have got our birds and have he few feathers we want from lan another onslaught in an- other locality. If we are lucky we may soon get located four or five miles away amid reeds and foliage under cover of darkness, so to ready for more shooting the next morning. We row about with rare caution, we seldom upeak in loud tones, and we do not even smoke :xbt:o‘a.le are hunrt'l:l, bot'lllu:l of tne rdinary wariness t! sinryad e, o fhe il for hours beneath my little roof of tmaol: and rushes, because I saw that a flock FOR EGRETS IN THE WORLD. of egrets was suspicious of the presence of an enéemy. 2 “The shores of the lagoons of Central Ameriea and the southern part of Mexico abound In alligators, while all manner pestiferous .stinging flies, ‘gnats and mos quitoes are in the air. \We:have suff tortures from insect pests. and one of r hunting men died in agony from poison of-gnats several years ago. W We are on shore we bave danger at niznt from the puma, or. mountair lism, and we always sleep with fires burning sides of our camp. 1 brought up w on this trip to Los Angeles eleven skins for sale to fur rug makers lost several jackasses by the mount lions. One day- I caught a lon in the very act of attacking one of my donkeys. Tha lion, which is simply an enormous cat had sprung at the soft, flabby neck of tha donkey. and had torn away the fles preparatery to sucking the blood at tna jugular vein. ““Egrets and herons are, as you know of the crane family of birds. The e are small, much like -the bitterns and boaibills of the same family. Herons usually measure four feet from bill to tip of the tafl. Thelr expanse of wings is often seven feet, and they stand about forty Inthes high. Their weight is from three to four pounds. The hunting sea- son for both egrets and herons begins In February and closes in September. It is now at its very height, and I shall go back down the coast in a few days to resume shooting operations. After Au- gust the feathers of herons and egrets become coarse and hard and are in no demand in the best markets. Both vari- eties of the birds are as white as snow so far as I have ever seen, but people from Peru and Argentine Republic say the: have seen blue and red and even blac{ herons. Herons are slow_of flight, and, like the crapes that are known all over the world, they have a very graceful, dignified way of drawing their attenu- ated legs up under them and sailing away to lofty eminences by an occaslonal flap of their wings. The egrets are more fussy and nervous creatures. They are as watchful as weasels, although one who sees them for the first time would be very apt to think egrets dumb and stupid, like ostriches. “Both herons and egrets feed on small fish, frogs and in- sects that they find close inshore, whers the birds may wade about in the marsh ick up their victims at will. The egret's feathers are much more beautiful and delicate than the heron's All egret lumes come from the back, and th raop gracefully over the tail of the bird. The heron prefers to make a nest in the top of some tree along the edge of a bay or a lagoon, or particularly on the upper- most part of a rock or promontory that may rear itself up from an inland A Egrets make nests among driftwood. or in a derx Spot among rushes, accumulated seaweed or brush in a lagoon as far from shore as possible. Both varieties of birds make nests of sticks and large twigs, and both bave been known to keep their nests for several years at a time, al- though I myself have never been able to observe that point use my advent in a colony of the crane family means war and death In short order. ts usually y six eggs herons four. The eggs of both are of a sea green hue. A heron does not have its best feathers until it is ten months old, and the plumes of an ‘et are not worth $23 an ounce ?{: bird is over a year old.” - i st . 6. o= . o