"The natives of the country, who do virtually all of the hunting for feathers, are not provident in their nature, and their practices are of a most cruel and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their young in the nests above, which were calling for food. _I have known these people to tie and prop up wounded egrets on the marsh where they would attract the attention of other birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they die of their wounds, or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of that country actually eating out the eyes of these wounded, helpless birds that were tied up by the plume-hunters._ I could write you many pages of the horrors practiced in gathering aigrette feathers in Venezuela by the natives for the millinery trade of Paris and New York. "To illustrate the comparatively small number of dead feathers which are collected, I will mention that in one year I and my associates shipped to New York eighty pounds of the plumes of the large heron and twelve pounds of the little recurved plumes of the snowy heron. In this whole lot there were not over five pounds of plumes that had been gathered from the ground--and these were of little value. The plume-birds have been nearly exterminated in the United States and Mexico, and the same condition of affairs will soon exist in tropical America. This extermination will come about because of the fact that the young are left to starve in the nest when the old birds are killed, any other statement made by interested parties to the contrary notwithstanding. "I am so incensed at the ridiculously absurd and misleading stories that are being published on this question that I want to give you this letter, and, before delivering it to you, shall take oath to its truthfulness." Here is the testimony of Mr. Caspar Whitney, of New York, formerly editor of _Outing_ Magazine and _Outdoor America_: "During extended travel throughout South America, from 1903 to 1907, inclusive, I journeyed, on three separate occasions, by canoe (1904-1907), on the Lower Orinoco and Apure rivers and their tributaries. This is the region, so far as Venezuela is concerned, in which is the greatest slaughter of white herons for their plumage, or more specifically for the marital plumes, which are carried only in the mating and breeding season, and are known in the millinery trade as 'aigrettes.' "There is literally no room for question. The snowy herons are killed exactly as I describe. It is the custom of all those who hunt for the millinery trade, and is recognized by the natives as the usual method." Here is the testimony of Mr. Julian A. Dimock, of Peekamose, N.Y., the famous outdoor photographer, and illustrator of "Florida Enchantments":