Cl)e ^utiubon Societies 



" i'oK cannot 'with a scalpel find the poet's soul. 

 Nor yet the wild bird's sonff." 



Edited by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright (President of tlie Audubon Society of the State of 

 Connecticut), Fairfield, Conn., to whom all communications relating to the work of the Audubon 

 and other Bird Protective Societies should be addressed. 



DIRECTORY OF STATE AUDUBON SOCIEIIES 



With names and addresses of their Secretaries. 



New Hampshire Mrs. F. W. Batchelder, Manchester. 



Massachusetts Miss Harriet E. Richards, care Boston Society of Natural History, Boston. 



Rhode Island Mrs. H. T. Grant, Jr., 187 Bowen street. Providence. 



Connecticut Mrs. Henry S. Glover, Fairfield. 



New York Miss Emma H. Lockwood, 243 West Seventy-fifth street, New York City. 



New Jersey Miss Anna Haviland, 53 Sandford Ave., Plainfield, N. J. 



Pennsylvania Mrs. Edward Robins, 114 South Jwenty-first street, Philadelphia. 



District of Columbia. Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. 



Wheeling, W. Va. (branch of Penn. Society).. Elizabeth I. Cummins, 1314 Chapline street. Wheeling. 



Ohio Miss Clara Russell, 903 Paradrome street, Cincinnati. 



Indiana Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. 



Illinois Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. 



Iowa Miss Nellie S. Board, Keokuk. 



Wisconsin Mrs. George W. Peckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. 



Minnesota Mrs. J. P. Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul. 



Texas Miss Cecile Sei.xas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. 



California Mrs. George S. Gay, Redlands. 



A Bird Class for Children 



One of the most frequent questions 

 asked by those seeking to win children to 

 an appreciation of birds is, "How, when 

 we have awakened the interest, can we 

 keep it alive ? " 



The only way to accomplish this, to my 

 thinking, is to take the children out-of- 

 doors and introduce them to the ' bird in 

 the bush,' to the bird as a citizen of a 

 social world as real in all its duties and 

 requirements as our own. 



There is a group of people with ultra 

 theoretical tendencies, who insist upon con- 

 sidering the bird merely as a feathered 

 vertebrate that must not be in any way 

 humanized, or taken from its perch in 

 the evolutionary scheme, to be brought to 

 the plane of our daily lives. In teaching 

 children, I believe in striving to humanize 

 the bird as far as is consistent with abso- 

 lute truth, that the child may, through its 

 own love of home, parents, and its various 

 desires, be able to appreciate the corre- 

 sponding traits in the bird. How can this 

 best be done ? By reading to children ? 



That is one way ; and good, accurate, and 

 interesting bird books are happily plenti- 

 ful. But when the outdoor season comes, 

 little heads grow tired of books, and any- 

 thing that seems like a lesson is repugnant. 



Then comes the chance to form a bird 

 class, or a bird party, if the word class 

 seems too formidable. A dozen children 

 are quite enough to be easily handled. 

 The ages may range from six to twelve. 

 Arrange to have them meet outdoors once 

 a week, in the morning, during June and 

 July. A pleasant garden or a vineclad 

 piazza will do for a beginning ; it is inad- 

 visable to tire children by taking them 

 far afield until they have learned to iden- 

 tify a few very common birds in their 

 natural surroundings. 



Children who are familiar with even the 

 very best pictures of birds must at first 

 be puzzled by seeing the real bird at a dis- 

 tance, and perhaps partly screened by 

 foliage. The value of the outdoor bird 

 class is, that to be successful it must 

 teach rapid and accurate personal observa- 

 tion. 



"Very true," you say, "but the birds 



