I have space to notice one other important erroneous conclusion that Mr. Downham publishes in his book, on page 105. He says: "The destruction of birds in foreign countries is something that no trade can direct or control." This is an amazing declaration; and absolutely contrary to experience. Let me prove what I say by a fresh and incontestable illustration: Prior to April, 1911, when Governor Dix signed the Bayne law against the sale of wild native game in the State of New York, Currituck County, N.C., was a vast slaughter-pen for wild fowl. No power or persuasion had availed to induce the people of North Carolina to check, or regulate, or in any manner mitigate that slaughter of geese, ducks and swans. It was estimated that two hundred thousand wild fowl were annually slaughtered there. We who advocated the Bayne law said: "Close the New York markets against Currituck birds, and you will stop a great deal of the slaughter." We cleaned our Augean stable. The greatest game market in America was absolutely closed. Last winter (1911) the annual killing of wild fowl was fully fifty per cent less than during previous years. In one small town, twenty professional duck shooters went entirely out of business--because they _couldn't sell their ducks_! The dealers refused to buy them. The result was exactly what we predicted it would be; and this year, it is reported over and over that ducks are more plentiful in New England than they have been in twenty years previously! The result is wonderful, because so quick. Beyond all question, the feather merchants of London, Paris and Berlin absolutely control the bird-killers of Venezuela, China, New Guinea. Mexico and South America. Let the word go forth that "the trade" is no longer permitted to buy and sell egret and heron plumes, skins of birds of paradise and condor feathers, and presto! the killing industry falls dead the next moment. [Illustration: MISCELLANEOUS BIRD SKINS, 8 CENTS EACH Purchased by the New York Zoological Society from the Quarterly Sale in London, August, 1912] Yes, indeed, members of the British Parliament: it is easily within _your power_ to wipe out at a single stroke fully one-half of the bird slaughter for fancy feathers. It can be done just as we wiped out one-half the annual duck slaughter in wickedly-wasteful North Carolina! The feather trade absolutely _does_ control the killing situation! Now, will the people of England clean house by controlling the feather trade? If a hundred species of the most beautiful birds of the world must be exterminated for the feather trade, let the odium rest elsewhere than on the people of England.