8 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



The brush pile offers a safe breeding place for the birds into which the 

 cat cannot get and the sparrows and thrushes raise their broods every year. 

 I think you are in error about the cultivation of the arbutus. I have 

 a small patch, sent me originally from Franklin, New Hampshire, that is 

 doing well and blooming better each year. A place must be chosen to 

 grow it that offers a suitable location, a north or northwest exposure on the 

 border of woodland is best. Keep away from moisture as it does not like 

 wet feet or a sweet soil or lime. Epsom salts is a good fertilizer, also for 

 laurel and rhododendrons. I raise many wild flowers in a small wooded 

 dingle here, such as hepatica, partridge-berry, bittersweet, adder's-tongue, 

 bloodroot, wintergreen, pyrola, pipsisewa, the pink lady's-slipper, cow- 

 slips, blue flag and such ferns as the Christmas, osmunda, cinnamon, 

 maiden's-hair, polypody, etc. Anything can be grown under its proper or 

 natural conditions. One of our former botanist gardeners naturalized large 

 patches of arbutus on his place in West Springfield. I have myself seen 

 them growing three years ago. Some time ago the city forester here, 

 collected 1/4 oz. of arbutus seed by tying a glass vial over the blossoms. 

 He advertised it for sale and readily found a customer for as much as he 

 had and more at any price he wanted. All parks should be wild-flower 

 preserves. Forest Park in Springfield is such, but not much is done to 

 increase their numbers or protect them more than to put up signs. Mr. 

 Edward Gillett, the wild-flower man of Southwick, Mass., has the largest 

 and most interesting collection of wild flowers and ferns in this vicinity. 



J. P. Poland. 



OIL KILLS DUCKS 



If it is not one thing it is another where wild life touches civilization. 

 The greatly increased use of crude oil in steamships and its transportation 

 and storage in ports have brought death to thousands of waterfowl this 

 fall. Just before Thanksgiving a member of the Society brought in from 

 Cohasset a dovekie which had been found in a dying condition in the road. 

 The feathers of this bird were so saturated with crude oil that it seemed an 

 entirely new species. Only when the oil was washed from its feathers were 

 its true colors revealed. This was during the big storm just before Thanks- 

 giving, and reports from alongshore showed that many of these birds and 

 other waterfowl had been blown ashore in the same condition. It was 

 commonly reported that the oil on the water was due to the wreckage of 

 an oil tank off^shore. From Providence, however, has recently come a story 

 of still greater disaster, due, it is claimed, to the bursting of an oil tank 

 on shore. The crude oil flowed into the water, saturated the feathers of 

 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wintering wild duck and killed them. 

 The situation is such that the matter has been taken up by the Commission 

 of Purification of Waters of Narragansett Bay, by the Bird Commissioners 

 of the State of Rhode Island and by others interested, and a vigorous 

 attempt will be made to abate the unfortunate conditions. Fall River bird- 

 lovers are alarmed lest similar misfortunes come to the birds in the Bay 

 there. A ten-million-dollar oil-refining plant is about finished on the 

 Taunton River. Crude oil has already ruined the bathing beaches of many 

 parts of Narragansett Bay. It is feared that the careless loading and 

 unloading at these points will further add to the misfortunes of the ducks 

 and other birds. 



