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

 Nor yet the wild bird's song." 



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

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

 and other Bird Protective Societies should be addressed. Reports, etc., designed for this depart- 

 ment should be sent at least one month prior to the date of publication. 



DIRECTORY OF STATE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



With names and addresses of their Secretaries" 



New Hamphire. 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. William Brown 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 Twenty-first street, Philadelphia. 



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



Maryland Miss Anne Weston Whitney, 715 St. Paul Street, Baltimore. 



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



South Carolina Miss S. A. Smyth, Legare street, Charleston. 



Florida Mrs. C. F. Dommkrich, Maitland. 



Ohio Mrs. D. Z. McClhlland, 5265 Eastern .Ave., Cincinnati. 



Indiana .Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. 



Illinois Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. 



Iowa Mrs. T. L. Wales, Keokuk. 



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



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



Tennessee Mrs. C. C. Conner, Ripley. 



Texas Miss Cecile Seixas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. 



California Mrs. George S. Gay, Redlands. 



Fees and Pledges 



Among the many perplexing problems 

 that confront the organizers of bird pro- 

 tective societies, none are more fruitful 

 sources of discussion and amiable dis- 

 agreement than the question of to have, 

 or not to have, fees and pledges. 



It is a question, moreover, that may not 

 be overlooked or set aside, as it involves 

 two of the fundamentals of organization. 

 Advocates for and against have equally 

 plausible arguments, I grant, and yet, 

 personally, I believe in fees — graded fees 

 — and I do not believe in pledges — that 

 is to say direct, cast iron ones. These 

 qualifications need an explanation, and it 

 will be more simple to consider the 

 subjects separately — pledges first. 



In asking people to cooperate in the 

 cause of bird protection, the different 

 methods of protection are usually fully 

 set forth, and it must be evident to the 



dullest adult mind that feather-wearing 

 and nest-robbing are two acts totally 

 incompatible with Audubon membership. 

 Understanding this, and yet signifying 

 the desire to join the society, is it either 

 necessary or wise to force the applicant 

 to sign a pledge ? Whatever may be said 

 for the system, one fact I know, and that 

 is that there are hundreds of consistent 

 people who, of their own volition, have 

 abandoned the use of any feathers other 

 than ostrich plumes and the wings of 

 food birds. Is it logical to ask them to 

 publicly promise not to do something 

 that they have no intention of doing ? 



Then, too, there is something disagree- 

 ably coercive to the American mind in 

 signing, or promising away, even the 

 smallest fraction of its liberty of action. 

 Some of the most intelligently temperate 

 people I know, with the most decided 

 ideas upon the liquor traffic question, 

 would as soon cut off their right hands 



(63) 



