AIGRETTE, the long back plumes which the egret (q.v.) assumes in the breeding season, the use of which as ornaments in women's headdresses has become rare, owing to the protests of humanitarians on account of the cruelty involved in slaughtering the birds and leaving their young to starve. The name is also given to any similar ornament, in gems, etc., to the insignia of rank of colonels in the French army and, in science, to feathery excrescences such as the pappus of the dandelion and the lumi nous rays seen diverging from the moon's edges in solar eclipses.