STATE FORESTS AS BIRD SANCTUARIES 



211 



A Window Box in Meridan Showing Birds Feeding. 



Photo by Ernest Harold Baynes. 



STATE FORESTS AS BIRD SANCTUARIES* 



By William P. Wharton 



IN a recent address by the well-known 

 naturalist, Mr. Ernest Harold 

 Baynes, on Bird Protection, the 

 speaker began his remarks by asking 

 three questions: (1) Do birds need pro- 

 tection by man? (2) Is bird protection 

 by man justified on purely economic 

 grounds? (3) If the answers to these 

 two questions are affirmative, what 

 methods can man employ to the best 

 advantage to protect and increase 

 birds? It requires but a few familiar 

 illustrations from the history of bird 



life in this country to prove conclusively 

 that nearly all species of birds must 

 have some sort of protection irom man 

 if they are to survive. The passenger 

 pigeon, the great auk, the Labrador 

 duck, the Eskimo curlew are extinct 

 chiefly as a result of unrestrained perse- 

 cution by man, and the heath hen, 

 upland plover, egret and others have 

 been reduced to the danger point by the 

 same cause. Many other species are 

 rapidly diminishing as a direct or in- 

 direct result of man's activities. It is 



