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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



over one hundred thousand dollars. 

 This island was again raided by feather 

 collectors in the spring of 1915. 



President Taft continued the policy 

 of creating bird reservations begun by 

 IVIr. Roosevelt, and a number were 

 established during his administration. 

 President Wilson likewise is a warm 

 friend of bird protection and has given 

 these measures his support. One of 

 many reservations he has created is the 

 Panama Canal Zone which, however, is 

 in charge of the Panama Canal Com- 

 mission. With this exception, and that 

 of the Pribilof reservation, which is in 

 charge of the Bureau of Fisheries, all 

 government bird reservations are under 

 the care of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture and their administration is directly 

 in charge of the Bureau of Biological 

 Survey. The National Association of 

 Audubon Societies still contributes in a 

 modest way to the financial support of 

 some of the wardens. 



It may be noted that there are no 

 government bird reservations in the 

 original thirteen colonies. This is be- 

 cause there were no government waste 

 lands containing bird colonies in these 

 states. To protect such colony-breeding 

 birds as were here found, therefore, other 

 means were necessary. The subject is 

 well taken care of by the Auduljon So- 

 ciety, which from its New York office 

 employs annually about fifty agents to 

 guard in summer the more important 

 groups of w^ater birds along the Atlantic 

 Coast, and about some of the lakes of 

 the interior. W^ater bird colonies are 

 usually situated on islands where the 

 birds are comparatively free from the 

 attacks of natural enemies, hence the 

 question of guarding them resolves itself 

 mainly into the question of keeping 

 people from disturbing the birds during 

 the late spring and summer months. 

 Painted signs will not do this. Men 



hired for the purpose constitute the only 

 safe means. Some of the protected 

 islands have been bought or leased by 

 the x\udubon Society, but in many cases 

 they are still under private ownership 

 and the consent necessary for placing a 

 guard there has been obtained as a favor 

 from the owner. Probably half a mil- 

 lion breeding water birds now find pro- 

 tection in the Audubon reservations. 

 On the islands oft' the ]Maine coast the 

 birds chiefly safeguarded by this means 

 are the herring gull, Arctic tern, Wilson's 

 tern, Leach's petrel, black guillemot, and 

 puffin. There are protected colonies of 

 terns on Long Island, terns and laughing 

 gulls on the New Jersey coast, and colo- 

 nies of black skimmers, and various terns 

 in Virginia and North Carolina. 



One of the greatest struggles which the 

 Audubon Society has ever had has been 

 to raise funds to protect the colonies of 

 egrets and ibis in South Atlantic states. 

 The story of this fight is longer than can 

 be told here. Briefly, — the protected 

 colonies are located mainly in the low 

 swampy regions of North Carolina, 

 South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. 

 I have been in many of these " rookeries" 

 and know that the warden who under- 

 takes to guard one of them takes his 

 life in his hand. Perhaps a description 

 of one will answer more or less for all 

 the twenty others the Society has under 

 its care. 



Some time ago I visited the warden 

 of the Corkscrew Rookery, located at 

 the edge of the "Big Cypress" swamp, 

 thirty-two miles south of Fort Myers, 

 Floricia. Arriving at the colony late in 

 the evening, after traveling thirty miles 

 without seeing a human l)eing or a human 

 habitation, we killed a rattlesnake and 

 proceeded to make camp. The shout- 

 ings of a pair of sand-hill cranes awak- 

 ened us at daylight, and, according to 

 Greene, the warden, the sun was about 



