318 ANNUAL REPORT SIvnTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 



mightily to the development of these areas. We should be far behind 

 our present program had it not been for the aid rendered by the 

 personnel made available from these agencies. 



We feel that it is necessary to have at least 3,500,000 additional acres 

 of marsh in strategic points before Ave can be absolutely assured of 

 the safety of the migratory waterfowl population. This acreage, if 

 and when it is restored, will also mean much to all the nongame species 

 that utilize marsh environments. 



There is one other thing that should be mentioned in this very brief 

 review of the present status of the refuge program; that is that in 

 1939 there was dedicated near Washington the Patuxent Wildlife Re- 

 search Refuge, with adequate buildings provided, or in course of con- 

 struction, to make it a great wildlife-research center. There, even- 

 tually, will be housed the entire wildlife-research laboratories of the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, which previously were in Washington, new 

 laboratories that have been developed, and personnel for new studies 

 that are being undertaken on this area. The refuge consists of 3,000 

 acres of land, woods, and water, within an hour's ride of Washington. 

 It is now available to the scientific staff for any kind of experimental or 

 observational use they may care to make of it. It is expected and 

 planned that long-time studies about the relationships of species of 

 wildlife with each other, with agricultural crops, and with changing 

 environments will be set up there in places and under conditions that 

 will permit them to go on for many years without being disturbed. It 

 is our hope to institute on this refuge such long-time studies as it is 

 impossible to make on land where administrative control cannot be 

 practiced by the research agency or where changing administrative 

 policies may destroy a research program just at the time it begins to 

 be of practical application. It is hoped to build up a complete history 

 of the work and observations carried on in this area, so that as the 

 years go by it will become increasingly valuable to the ornithologists, 

 mammalogists, and other scientific men of this country as a source of 

 information. It will also provide us with much-needed data for a 

 wiser and saner administration of the land now in the refuge system. 



It is the present policy of the Fish and Wildlife Service to be 

 guided in administrative policies by research findings. I assume that 

 this is an ideal condition that will never be completely attained. Re- 

 search men are impatient when their findings are not soon put into 

 practice ; on the other hand, other men are impatient if the research 

 men do not find the solutions promptly. Even after a solution is 

 found and tested, it takes time to change the program of a refuge 

 system as large and as scattered as that of the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service has now come to be. Previously we were not in a position to 

 invite people to make free use of the refuges. During the period of 



