The Audubon Societies 6i 



effect that education of the public with reference to the value of birds will 

 result logically in their protection, is quite in line with the best ideals of con- 

 servation as opposed to the sentimental plea for protection, condemned by 

 Professor Shelford, provided that this education is put on a sufficiently 

 broad basis, which we think is the aim of bird-protectionists in general. 



The Junior Audubon work is fast becoming a most important part of this 

 great educational movement. The fact that it is being extended to Alaska so 

 efficiently, is a fine exhibition of the energy and power controlling it. 



The Massachusetts bill, authorizing the appointment of paid bird-war- 

 dens by city councils or town meetings, is a significant hint of what we may 

 expect of an aroused public sentiment as a result of such education. Hitherto, 

 game-wardens have been appointed with little attention to their fitness for the 

 ofl&ce. California and Oregon are leading the way to the selection of wardens 

 who shall be capable "not only of giving police service but who are fitted to 

 carry on research and educational work" — in other words, a civil-service 

 standard is now demanded in wide-awake communities in the matter of the 

 protection and conservation of wild life. Arizona shows how a game-warden 

 may be an equally capable President of the State Audubon Society. 



When bird-legislation is directed, as in Oregon, toward the restriction of the 

 use of firearms by children under fourteen, the prevention of the pollution of 

 streams, the seizure and sale of the outfits of illegal hunters, and against the 

 shooting of game from a public highway, railroad right of way, ocean beach 

 or the shores of a large river, the criticism of sentimental narrow-mindedness 

 on the part of ornithological enthusiasts loses ground. 



What Mr. Swope says about cooperation with commissioners of education, 

 editors of newspapers, and teachers in the matter of making this educational 

 work, particularly, the Junior Audubon part of it, better understood, should 

 be reread with care. 



The transfer of Dr. C. F. Hodge from the field of specialized biological 

 investigation to the enlarged work of applied civic biology in connection with 

 the former, and the natural history campaign in New Jersey are both notable 

 happenings, the outcome of which is to be watched with keen interest. 



Space forbids more than the mention of the following items, each one of 

 which might be looked up with profit. The results of supervision of nature- 

 study in California by a special Director; the presentation of the cat problem 

 in a leaflet by the Connecticut Audubon Society; spring-study classes in the 

 District of Columbia; the model law of Kentucky, enforcing "the wTitten con- 

 sent of the ow^ner" clause with reference to shooting upon farms; the new bird 

 chart with explanatory pamphlet, issued by the Massachusetts Society, and 

 also, the efforts of the Field Secretary in that state, to keep in touch with local 

 work; the erection of bird-boxes in cemeteries and the investigation of the com- 

 parative mortality of the bird-population in sections where nesting-boxes are 

 placed, the distribution of food for birds in winter by rural mail carriers and 



