Senator Hoar
Murder of Birds
Advertisement in Birds’ Nests by William Day
「1897」Senator Hoar, “Advertisment「On Murdering Birds」” in Birds’ Nests: A Plea for Bird and Beast (Somerville, MA, 1897; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003).
Some people call the objection to「sacrificing birds」mere sentiment. So is the objection to murdering children a sentiment.
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Senator Hoar in Boston Advertiser
I do not think the persons who in the papers or in private conversation speak lightly of this matter know that there is great danger that these delightful ornaments of the world in which we live will become exterminated the world over.…
It is said that England exports more than 25,000,000 dead birds every year, and that their skins and feathers are made into articles to adorn women. In all Europe 300,000,000 birds are sacrificed every year for this purpose. In Chicago one dealer receives in a single season 32,000,000 humming-birds and 300,0000 other birds of different varieties, or their wings. Some people call the objection to all this mere sentiment. So is the objection to murdering children a sentiment.
One of the most distinguished men in this country, who was in my committee-room at the Capitol last winter, told me that the day before two ladies had called upon his daughter, each of whom had on her hat seven aigrettes or spires. Now, but one of these is grown upon the bird. So there were fourteen beautiful birds sacrificed for the passing fashion of ornament for the heads of these two women.…These feathers are a sort of bridal ornament of the female bird, growing when the nesting season begins and dying down soon after the brood is reared. So in all probability the destruction of the mother bird to get each of these plumes had cost not only her life, but that of a brood of young ones.…The object of the bird petition and the Massachusetts law which followed it was to call the attention of the American women, who have the best and kindest hearts God ever made for the comfort of man, to an evil which they can cure by a simple change of fashion. Our love for them is a sentiment. It is a sentiment largely enhanced by our delight in the beauty of girl and matron, and in the sweetest music in the world-the voices of mothers and sisters and wives. It is no faint or far-off echo of that music which comes to our ears when we listen to our song-birds, and I am sure that, whoever shall be the enemies of these delightful and beautiful creatures which God has given the world for its most exquisite ornament, the American women will be their friends and saviours.
