The Audubon Societies 



71 



be a serious menace to all forms of wild 

 life. The arm of the law, in the form of 

 the game-warden, must still be busy. We 

 captured one Italian with two Rhode 

 Island Red Chickens he had shot. — 

 Wilbur F. Smith, South Norwalk, Conn. 



Loss of Bird-Life in Forest Fires 



William B. Mershon, of Saginaw, 

 Michigan, sends us a note from J. H. 

 McGillivray, a forest expert, that adds 

 another and very important reason for 

 extreme care in preventing forest fires. 

 The note follows: 



"It may interest 3'ou to know that I 

 made a game-survey last summer of 

 approximately ten acres of green covert 

 on the Au Sable River, along about the 

 same extent of burnt-over ground, and 

 by conservative estimates based on the 

 wild life found, allowing 5 cents each for 

 song-birds, 25 cents each for Partridges, 

 etc., as food-value, and an equivalent 

 value for recreation purposes, multiplied 

 by the number of acres in Michigan 

 burned over last year, increased decimally 

 (for wild life averages ten years of life), 

 I found that even holding the timber loss 

 to the exceptionall}^ low figure of $86,000, 

 we destroyed by forest fires approxi- 

 mately $3,000,000 worth of game." 



The Birds and the Belgians 



The young son and daughter of W. W. 

 Grant, of Geneva, New York, devised a 

 plan last summer which served a kindly 

 purpose in two ways. They constructed 

 ninety-eight bird-boxes, and sold them for 

 the benefit of blind and wounded soldiers 

 in Europe. Deducting the cost of the 

 lumber and its sawing into uniform pieces, 

 the profit obtained added $9 to the 

 soldier's fund. As all these boxes were dis- 

 posed of locally, and were excellently 

 designed, and many were given away in 

 addition to those sold, the birds of Geneva 

 ought to be both happy and numerous 

 next spring. The children got so much 

 pleasure out of their doubly beneficial 

 enterprise that they propose to try it 

 again this winter. 



A Community of Albino Robins 



Several white Robins have been seen in 

 this vicinity from 1914 to the present, 

 seven or eight having been counted by the 

 Junior Audubon Class of this town. One 

 well-known example has snow-white plu- 

 mage — not one colored feather. Dr. R. W. 

 Dove of this town relates that in June, 

 1916, he found a nest containing one 

 brown and two white Robins and observed 

 that they were being fed alike by both the 

 male and female parents. One of those 

 white birds at the present writing is 

 feasting on the mulberries and raspberries 

 in the lot and adjoining lots of the writer. 

 — Alonzo Thompson, Harman, W . Va. 



New Finley Films 



Since many churches, schools and other 

 educational institutions are now equipped 

 with moving-picture lanterns, it is impor- 

 tant that good films of wild-bird and 

 animal life be available for this educa- 

 tional work. It will not be many years 

 before educational institutions will have 

 libraries of various things illustrated with 

 moving pictures, as now we have libraries 

 for books, manuscripts, and magazines. 

 The National Association of Audubon 

 Societies has been collecting moving pic- 

 tures to show its various fields of activity, 

 especially in organizing Junior Audubon 

 Societies, showing the children putting 

 up bird-houses, feeding song-birds in 

 winter, and the results accomplished on 

 the big wild-bird reservations in various 

 parts of the country. 



William L. Finley, field-agent for the 

 Pacific Coast States, has collected during 

 the past five years remarkable moving 

 pictures of wild birds and other animals. 

 He has been in the field a large part of the 

 time, visiting the big federal wild-bird 

 reservations of the West, and has achieved 

 some wonderful results. Some of these 

 films were shown last year while Mr. 

 Finley was on his lecture-tour through 

 eastern cities. He will be in the East dur- 

 ing March to show a new series of moving- 

 picture reels. 



