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By ELEANOR M. MARSHALL
CHINCHILLAS are so lovely— and so rare — that their pelts bring the highest prices of any fur, although the cost of raising them varies at present between only $2 and $3 a year. Since these lovely pets are successfully bred in captivity, they will not become extinct. But they might have — had it not been for the courage and foresight of M. F. Chapman of Los Angeles.
As an engineer in the employ of the Anaconda Copper Company in Chile, Chapman's first meeting with one of these lovely pets was when an Indian called to show him a live chinchilla the Indian had captured and was keeping in a box. Mr. Chap' m_an took an instant liking to the little captive because chinchillas are B gentle, inquisitive and too willing to le be friends for their own good. That id is why they have been hunted relent' (it lessly since the discovery that even a i queen preferred a present of their fur ]i to one of gold and gems. ]. There is a legend about how a Spanish queen was tricked by a thiev
FURS
for a
PRINCESS
Want a pair of chinchillas for $1630? Enough pelts for a wrap (if you could get them) would cost $6,230. But alive, as breeding stock, they're worth $103,123. No wonder only 23 women own chinchilla coats!
ing messenger of a chest of gold plate and jewels an emissary had wrapped in chinchilla fur as added protection for the long journey from South America across the Atlantic. The messenger stole the contents and crammed the fur robe into the chest. That was all he presented to Her Majesty. Although he ran the risk of punishment, there was no swift means of communication to disclose his theft; so he was knighted instead. Every lady in waiting envied the queen her beautiful wrap. Before long. South America was being scoured for chinchillas so thoroughly that only the agility of the animals kept them from being annihilated for their pelts.
SINCE 1899 the Chilean government has prohibited trapping, hunting or exporting chinchillas, yet Chapman promptly bought his Indian visitor's little captive. From that day in 1919 until Chapman died, his worries were centered on how to increase the world's chinchilla population. He realized that ruthless slaughter had