THE AUDUBON NOTE BOOK. 



MEMBERSHIP RETURNS. 



The registered membership of the Society on 

 Dec. 31, 1887, was 42,987, showing an increase of 

 741 during the month, due to the following sources: 



New York 195 Missouri 37 



Massachusetts 49 Ohio 37 



New Hampshire 39 Michigan 10 



New Jersey 13 Indiana 2 



Maine 34 California 2 



Connecticut 33 Rhode Island 25 



Vermont 4 Minnesota 5 



Pennsylvania 76 Virginia i 



Florida 21 West Virginia 11 



Maryland 6 Nevada i 



Kentucky 25 Tennessee 3 



Kansas 8 Dakota 18 



Iowa 27 Canada 39 



Illinois 19 England i 



741 

 The registered number of the Society on Dec. 31, 

 1886, was 17,723, from which it will be seen that 

 the registrations during the year 1887 amount to 

 25,264. Our register for associate members has not 

 been very e.xtensively availed of, only 37 members 

 having sent in their names for enrollment. 



These figures by no means represent the full 

 strength of the Audubon Society. There is an 

 unaffiliated branch society in Philadelphia with quite 

 a respectable membership; there is the Smith College 

 Audubon Society, whose members, although they are 

 entitled to rank as associate members, have not been 

 registered on our books, and some other local societies 

 which seek the same aims by the same methods, 

 without affiliating themselves to the parent Society. 



The real strength of the movement, the value of 

 the Society's labors, must be sought in its influence 

 upon the general public, and if this still leaves some- 

 thing to strive for, something wanting to complete 

 success, there is certainly abundant cause for con- 

 gratulation. The Society has commanded the at- 

 tention of womankind at large, and compelled them 

 to weigh its arguments in favor of bird protection, 

 and to think about the moral and aesthetic aspects of 

 dead-bird millinery, and they have thought to some 

 purpose. Ostrich feathers and cocks' plumes are in 

 vogue, and single quill feathers of eagles, turkeys, 

 or other large birds are worn with effect, but the 

 poor little stuffed bird with his glass eyes and dis- 

 torted limbs has been pronounced bad taste, and re- 

 legated to the limbo to which all dead fashions are 

 consigned before they finally disappear. 



Yes, the Society has cause to congratulate itself on 



some good work done, but it started out with other 

 aims than the mere overthrow of the prevailing fash- 

 ion of dead-bird millinery. It aimed to strike at the 

 cause of which this was only a symptom. It aimed 

 at combating the popular assumption that birds were 

 of no consequence to man, and might be extermin- 

 ated without inconvenience; to awaken a general, in- 

 telligent and sympathetic interest in bird protection, 

 by teaching their economic importance to man, and 

 by instructing young and old in their characters and 

 life habits. 



To this end the Audubon Magazine was estab- 

 lished; it has been received favorably, and its circu- 

 lation is steadily increasing as it becomes known. 

 No child's education can be considered complete that 

 does not include a liberal course of natural history; 

 and on the special subject of birds the Audubon 

 Magazine is beyond all comparison the best popular 

 reader published. 



The Forest and Stream Publishing Company have 

 placed this periodical before the public at their own 

 cost and risk, and we are anxious to secure for it 

 such a circulation that it will in time render the 

 Society self-supporting. This is the one direction 

 in which the friends of bird protection can aid us 

 most effectively. We ask no one to put their hands 

 in their pockets for us, but we do ask all friends of 

 bird protection, all humanitarians, to speak a word 

 in season, in favor of a magazine the proceeds of 

 which are devoted wholly to the costs of spreading" 

 the Audubon movement. C. F. Amery, 



Secretary Audubon Society.. 



ORNITHOLOGISTS VS. COLLECTORS. 



A WRITER in a recent number of the Evening Post 

 is inclined to be severe on ornithologists, because of 

 some communications in a paper known as The 

 0)'nithologist and Oologist from a Mr. T. D. Perry 

 of Savannah, in which that gentleman, summing up 

 his oologic triumphs of the year, claims under the 

 blue grosbeak alone, which he recognizes as a retired, 

 beautiful, and rare species, eleven sets of three eggs, 

 four of four eggs, and several of two eggs, "more (he 

 adds) than I ever took in two seasons combined," and 

 further boasts that he and his friend took eighty eggs 

 of that very rare and beautiful singing bird, the 

 Swainson's warbler, in the same season. 



There is ample cause in this wanton destruction, 

 for all the indignation expressed by the writer in the 

 Ei'ening Post; but ornithologists must not be held 

 responsible for all that is done in their name by skin 



