“The fashion of wearing birds in the hat is, it seems, to continue in spite of its cruelty and its shortsightedness.”

A 1880s/90s fashion trend whereby women wore bird feathers and sometimes entire stuffed birds in their hats as ornaments meant trouble for woodpeckers and such. Song birds were legally protected but milliners coveted them regardless, so it was off with their heads. Until their heads could be stuffed and sewn back on and placed on a hat, that is. Numerous editorial writers and preservationists railed against the idiotic fashion until it finally abated. From the September 23, 1886 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“The youthful gunners of Astoria and Bushwick and other outlying regions north of Brooklyn have suddenly discovered the presence in the woods and gardens of numerous woodpeckers, and have committed great havoc among them, although these birds are among those which the state considers as song birds and protects by special statute. But the fashion of wearing birds in the hat is, it seems, to continue in spite of its cruelty and its shortsightedness. Many small birds, and particularly those of the woodpecker family, are insectivorous, and under the greatest services to humanity by unremitting war upon our insect pests. The shade trees of Kings County have suffered so terribly this Summer from the saw fly, the borer and the din beetle, that many horticulturists have been almost driven to despair. And now when some of these wretched creatures are hibernating, particularly the din beetle that infests our elm trees, and fall an easy prey to insectivorous birds the sound sense of the law becomes plainly manifest, and its observation in the most stringent manner is of paramount importance. Yet it is not observed, and young lads have been seen in the streets of Astoria with scores of these beautiful and yellow shafted flicker and the downy woodpecker, all of which have been butchered to adorn the hats of ladies. And it is to be feared that as long as milliners find a sale for such hats. so long will they give big prices to the young fellows in Long Island.”