Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/278

The Egret Hunters of Venezuela BY GEORGE K. CHERRIE Curator of Birds, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences 'HE country on both sides of the River Apure and its tributaries is low and flat, with innu- merable swamps and marshes. This country of llanos is the Egret country, comparatively few plumes being collected in the valley of the Orinoco proper. The center of the plume industry is at San Fernando de Apure, where -r^^ ^^ almost every business house, of whatever char- acter, has a prominent sign before its door of " Aqui se compra PLUMAS" (Plumes are bought here). I have visited San Fernando twice during my stay of a year and a half in this region, and each time counted about fifty bungos which were employed by their owners in plume hunting. These plume hunters' bungos are, as a rule, long, light dugout canoes, with an arched covering like a wagon top for full a third of their length, made of light matched lumber so as to keep provis- ions and plumes dry. This word regarding the style of covering, or carosas of these canoes may not be amiss, inasmuch as the ordinary carosa is made of palm leaves and would soon be torn and become leaky by the constant pushing through the tangle of the forest swamps. The methods employed by some of the native plume-hunters may explain some of the stories about plumes only being gathered at the heronries after being molted by the birds. An ordinar}' native's household furniture consists of a few pots and pans, ham- mocks, and a blanket for each member of the family ; a small native cedar wood-box, or trunk, containing the family wardrobe and val- uables. These are all easily embarked in a bungo, with provisions of casava and dried salt meat. The hunter and his family embark and work their way up or down the river and back, through the swamps and marshes, to the heronries, where they live until their provisions, or the Herons, are exhausted. While in the heronries the man shoots every Egret that he can possibly secure, while the women and children employ themselves by picking up such plumes as are to be found under the trees and along the edges of the ponds and marshes. Every sort of plume is taken, good, bad and indifferent : long and short, dirty and clean. At the houses of the principal plume merchants in San Fernando (50)