70 



Bird -Lore 



Amount brought forward $6,566 54 



Roberts, Miss Emily B 2 00 



Saul, Mr. Charles R 2 00 



Savage, Mr. S. L 5 00 



Sawtelle, Mrs. E. ]\I i 00 



Sherwood, Mrs. E. C 2 00 



Smith, Mrs. Marshal! i 00 



Smith, Mr. Marshall E i 00 



"Sphinx" 5 00 



Stevenson, Miss Anna P 2 00 



Townsend, Mr. J. H 10 00 



Tunis, Miss Annie 2 00 



V^an Wagenen, Mrs. G. A i 00 



Vermilye, Miss J. T 2 00 



Vermilye, Mrs. W. G 2 00 



Wasson, Mr. E. A i 00 



Zimmerman, Dr. M. W 5 00 



Income to October 20, 1912. . . .$6,610 54 

 Expenses as per annual report. . 5,015 28 



Balance unexpended. . .$1,595 26 



The program for Egret protection 

 which the National Association has 

 undertaken for the year 19 13 contains the 

 following provisions: 



1. Have introduced and push with 

 vigor bills in the legislatures of a number 

 of states to prohibit the sale of the plu- 

 mage of wild birds. 



2. Employ agents to further explore 

 the swamps of South Carolina, Georgia, 

 Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louis- 

 iana, in quest of such remnants of colonies 

 of White Egrets as are }'et undiscovered 

 by us. 



3. Employ wardens to guard the thirty 

 Egret colonies, with their population of 

 5,000 birds, already located, and 



4. Conduct a more extensive campaign 

 of publicity than ever before, in order to 

 acquaint the general public with the 

 cruelties connected with the nefarious 

 traffic in "aigrettes," which are the 

 nuptial plumes of the White Egrets. 



This is a large country, and a reform, 

 the opposition to which is deep rooted in 

 commercialism, cannot be brought about 

 in a day. In this work we have to contend 

 with extended moneyed interests which, 

 vampire-like, feast and fatten on the life- 

 blood of slaughtered birds. What do these 

 men care if we should some day have a 

 birdless country? In the legislative halls 

 and in the press these people accuse the 

 Audubon Society workers of being merely 



sentimentalists, and say we are inter- 

 fering with practical business. It was 

 "practical business" that all but exter- 

 minated the American Bison for the 

 ^•alue of the robes they wore and for the 

 pleasure to be derived from eating jerked 

 hump. It was "practical business" that 

 slaughtered the Passenger Pigeons by the 

 million and fed their bodies to hogs, which 

 Audubon tells us were often driven many 

 miles to the grewsome feasts. Yes, evi- 

 dences of "practical business" are to be 

 found on every hand, in the denuded 

 beaches where the Curlew once swarmed, 

 in the desolate barrens of the South, in 

 the boll-weevil-infested cotton-iields, in 

 the bare branches of the leafless elms of 

 New England, on the lawn, in the garden, 

 everywhere, anywhere in fact that the 

 greed of man could gain a profit by kill- 

 ing birds and selling their flesh or feath- 

 ers. The enactment and the enforcement 

 of laws of the most explicit and rigid 

 character must be secured if we are to 

 save much of our wild life. 



The Gulls and Terns, which ten or 

 fifteen years ago had become alarmingly 

 depleted along our coast-line because of 

 the feather -hunters, are again common 

 objects of beauty and attraction to all who 

 visit our seaboard. This change has 

 resulted because of the work of the Audu- 

 bon Societies in getting laws passed to 

 protect the birds, and by hiring men to 

 guard them, especially when collected on 

 these rookeries. In the same way the Egrets 

 can be increased and brought back. Who 

 knows but what, after a few years pro- 

 tection, they may not again be found 

 breeding in New Jersey and Long Island! 

 They once bred there. 



The plume-hunters of the South know 

 where every colony of Egrets collect in 

 summer, and unless the Audubon wardens 

 are on hand the birds are killed; for their 

 plumes are today worth more than twice 

 their weight in gold. Surely the American 

 people will not permit this slaughter to go 

 on longer. Already great headway has 

 been made the past few years in Egret 

 protection, but we cannot relax our 

 vigilance for a moment if the nefarious 



