The Audubon Societies 



83 



Mr. Winthrop Packard, our Agent for 

 Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Audu- 

 bon Society has been reorganized and gone 

 actively to work. New reorganization 

 was perfected in November with Gen. 

 Elbert Wheeler, of Manchester, Presi- 

 dent, and Rev. Manley B. Townsend, of 

 Nashua, Secretary. The Vermont Audu- 

 bon Society was revived in the same way, 

 Dr. Avery E. Lambert, of Middlebury 

 College, was elected President, and Mr. 

 C. J. Lyford, of Middlebury, was chosen 

 Secretary. These new organizations have 

 our most hearty goodwill and we hope 

 to be able to cooperate with them in 

 many fields of activity during the days to 

 come. 



Mr. H.^rt, President of the Virginia 

 .\udubon Society reports: "I wish to 

 report how the Virginia Audubon Society 

 last year was instrumental in shortening 

 the hunting-season on Quail. This was 

 accomplished by our writing to the Board 

 of Supervisors in each county in the state, 

 calling their attention to the reported 

 scarcity of game and the advisability of 

 some action on their part which would 

 keep the hunters out of the fields. The 

 Supervisors have power to shorten sea- 

 sons for killing game in this state. We 

 followed this up in January by an inquiry, 

 addressed to the Clerk of each county in 

 the state, as to what had been done by the 

 Supervisors, and found that twenty-two 

 counties had shortened the season after 

 our December notice, and that twenty- 

 three counties had closed the season before 

 our warning. The late Dr. Robert L. 

 Blanton and I went over these inquiry 

 cards and estimated conservatively the 

 number of birds (Quail) saved to be from 

 20,000 to 25,000. These estimates were 

 arrived at by taking the area of a county 

 in square miles and estimating so many 

 birds to the mile and then taking the popu- 

 lation of the county and estimating that 

 about three men in a thousand would be 

 hunting each day, with an average of 

 about si.x birds to the man, then multiply- 

 ing the number of birds by days closed. 

 We believed our estimate to be about as 



accurate as such estimates usually are. 

 These cards were turned over to the 

 Department of Agriculture, in Washing- 

 ton, and the Society's action in the matter 

 received high commendation in papers 

 devoted to game matters. In March I 

 went to Washington on two occasions 

 in the interest of the McLean Migra- 

 tory Bill, which later became the law of 

 the United States of America. As to 

 whether my services there amounted t<i 

 anything I have only to say that every 

 X'irginia member of Congress in l)()th 

 houses voted for the bill." 



Mr. William Finley, the Association's 

 Field Agent for the Pacific Coast, and also 

 State Game Warden for Oregon, has been 

 very active of late in enforcing the state 

 law against the wearing of the forbidden 

 "aigrette." In referring to some of his 

 work in this line the "Morning Oregonian" 

 for December 17, 1913, says: "One of the 

 most beautiful aigrette plumes that any of 

 the deputies of State Game Warden Fin- 

 ley has ever secured is reposing in the 

 offices in the Yeon building, as a spoil of 

 a raid which Finley ordered on the dress- 

 ing-room of Miss Lillian Herlein, prima 

 donna at the Orpheum Theater. 



"When Miss Herlein stepped from the 

 stage Monday afternoon, Mrs. J. C. Mur- 

 ray, a deputy warden, was on hand to seize 

 the plume. Despite the agitated protests 

 of the temperamental singer, they were 

 shorn from her head-dress. 



"Since the crusade on the forbidden 

 plume began about six months ago, Mr. 

 Finley's deputies have taken in some won- 

 derful plumes. It is said that the piece for- 

 merly owned by Miss Herlein was, in num- 

 bers of individual feathers, almost equal 

 to the fruits of the entire campaign. It had 

 forty-six dozen distinct plumes, it is said, 

 and the money value was about $41 2 at the 

 time of the purchase, according to report. 



"Her first appearance was at Monday's 

 matinee. In less than five minutes after 

 she took the stage the telephone rang, and 

 the voice of an irate woman, who was re- 

 cently relieved of a plume, informed the 

 Game Warden of the prize bunch of feath- 



