THE power of a very small vested interest is demonstrated in the opposition to the Plumage Bill, which has already been voted upon in the House of Commons four times, and each time with large majorities, and has twice passed through all its stages in the House of Lords without opposition. The general public is possibly inclined to think that the Bill proceeds out of a humanitarian tenderness for bird life. What it does not realize is that the most beautiful species of birds, that are the crown of splendour attained through countless ages of evolution, are not only threatened with extermination, but have already suffered it. In Trinidad alone, we read that thirteen out of eighteen species of humming-birds have entirely ceased to exist, and from every part of the world where such birds are found the story is the same. Naturalists are aghast at the destruction which is being done, and they are not exaggerating when they say that during the last sixty years, a mere second in the history of time, the most perfect creatures in form and in beauty are, except in a few parts of the earth, threatened with extinction. The argument of the trade against the Bill is completely answered by one of its most important members, who declares that the small number of people at present employed would be quickly outnumbered by those in the ostrich and poultry feather industries, and in the manufacture of artificial flowers and berries. He supports the Bill, not out of any motive of humanity, but because of its advantage to British trade.

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