Clje ^uDubon Societies 



EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT 



Edited by T. GILBERT PEARSON. Secretary 



Address all correspondence, and send all remittances for dues and contributions, to 

 the National Association of Audubon Societies, 974 Broadway, New York City 



William Dutcher, President 

 Theodore S. Palmer. First Vice-President T. Gilbert Pearson', Secretary 

 F. A. Lucas, Second Vice-President Jonathan D wight, Jr., Treasurer 



Any person, club, school, or company in sympathy with the objects of this Association may become 

 a member, and all are welcome. 



Classes of Membership in the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of 

 Wild Birds and Animals: 



$5.00 annually pays for a Sustaining Membership 

 $100.00 paid at one time constitutes a Life Membership 

 $1,000.00 constitutes a person a Patron 

 $5,000.00 constitutes a person a Founder 

 $25,000.00 constitutes a person a Benefactor 



A Great Year for the Birds 



The legislatures of about forty states 

 in the Union meet in 1913. At this writ- 

 ing the sessions in most of the states 

 have closed. The year has been marked 

 by a large amount of activity in reference 

 to the laws which make for the protection 

 of wild birds and animals. 



As usual, there have been numerous 

 attempts to provide more liberal seasons 

 for the shooting of ducks and other wild 

 fowl. These have nearly all been defeated 

 by the friends of bird-protection. After a 

 most extensive campaign in Massachu- 

 setts, the several bills of this character 

 were all disposed of in a satisfactory 

 manner. 



In New York State the pressure brought 

 to bear against the proposed laws to 

 permit the January shooting of ducks on 

 Long Island was sufficiently effective to 

 cause the authors of these bills to with- 

 draw them. Other measures of a harmful 

 character were pretty generally killed in 

 legislatures throughout the country. 



On the other hand, a great many bills 

 were introduced for the further protection 

 of birds, and an unusually large number of 

 these have been enacted. On April 22, 

 Governor Tener, of Pennsylvania, signed 

 the Jones Bill, Senate 46, thus ending the 

 long and hard-fought campaign in behalf 

 of this measure. The result not merely 

 gives Pennsylvania a plumage law as 



beneficial as those of New York and New 

 Jersey, but the campaign in its behalf has 

 been one of education and awakening to 

 the people of Pennsylvania on the subject 

 of the economic value of birds and the 

 necessity for their conservation, such as 

 the state has not before seen. 



Notwithstanding the repeated misrep- 

 resentations regarding the bill made by its 

 opponents, it passed the Senate on March 

 ID by a unanimous vote, and on April 8 

 went through the House of Representatives 

 174-0. The city of Philadelphia will thus 

 be cut off as a market for the sale of 

 aigrettes after July i, 1914. 



A law prohibiting the sale of aigrettes 

 has also been passed in Michigan. Ver- 

 mont adopted the New York law, making 

 illegal the sale of the feathers of all wild, 

 protected birds, as well as the feathers of 

 all other birds, regardless of where they 

 were taken, providing they belong to the 

 same family as protected species in that 

 state. 



In North Carolina, the Audubon Soci- 

 ety's bill to protect Robins became a law 

 for the counties of Halifax, Franklin, Bun- 

 combe, Mecklenburg, Hertford, Rowan, 

 Madison, Guilford, Rockingham, Union, 

 and Moore. For a long time it has been 

 practically impossible to get a state-wide 

 game law of anj^ character in North 

 Carolina, and any advancement in the 

 direction of bird-protection has to be 

 made by counties. 



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