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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



Edited by the Director of the Zoological Park. 

 Elwin R. Sanborn, Asst. Editor. 



Published Quarterly at the Office of the Society. 

 11 Wall Street, New York City. 



Single Numbers, 15 Cents; Yearly, 50 Cents. 



Mailed free to members. 



Copyright, 1909, by the New York Zoological Society. 



No. 34. JUNE. 1909 



(Bffirrra of tljc &ortrlg. 

 PrcBiflrnt : 



Henry Fairfii 



Exrrutiur (Snmmittrc: 



Madison Grant, Chairman, 



Samuel Thorne, 

 William White Niles, 

 Wm. Pierson Hasulton, 

 !<iRN, Ex-Officio. 



John S. Barnes, 

 Percy R. Pyne, 

 Levi p. Morton, 

 Henry 1 



Secretary, Madison Grant, 11 Wall > 



Treasurer, Percy R. Pyne, 30 Pine Street. 



Director, WiLLiAii T. Hornaday, Sc.D,, Zoological Park. 



Director of the Aquarium, Charles H. Townsend, Battery Park 



(Srnrral (f^tHters : 



Permission is given to quote in print any of 

 the matter contained in this issue, with the usual 

 credit to the Zoological Society Bulletin. 

 Editors are reminded that every article that ap- 

 pears in print in behalf of wild-life protection 

 directly aids the general cause. 



WILD-LIFE PROTECTION. 



This number of the Bulletin is wholly de- 

 voted to the cause of wild-life protection, be- 

 cause the duties of the hour demand it. One of 

 the three great objects for which this Zoological 

 Society was founded is "the preservation of our 

 native animals." In this field, we began active 

 work in 1897, the second year of our existence. 

 Notwithstanding the great labor that has been 

 involved in the creation of the Zoological Park, 

 — and its practical completion in eleven years, — 

 the Society has constantlj- engaged in work de- 

 signed to protect and perpetuate "our native 

 animals." Altogether we have expended about 

 $6,000 in this line of work. 



But the situation has constantly grown more 

 acute, and to-day the need for men to enforce 

 existing game laws is greater than ever before. 

 The Zoological Society is in great need of funds 

 with which to put men in the field, and keep 

 them there actively and aggressively at work. 

 This need emphasizes once more the necessity 

 of raising immediately a permanent endowment 

 fund, from the income of which we can pay the 

 cost of wild-life protection work. If some one 

 would place in our hands such a fund as that 

 left by Mr. Wilcox, i. e., $331,000, for the cause 

 of bird protection, it would go very far toward 

 preserving for future generations of Americans 

 some of the wild species that now are threat- 

 ened with practical extinction. 



THE DUTY OF INSTITUTIONS TO 

 WILD LIFE. 



It is an amazing fact that of all the scientific 

 institutions of America two only are actively en- 

 gaged in the promotion of measures for the 

 preservation and increase of wild life. The ex- 

 ceptions to the rule of absolute passivity are, so 

 far as known, the New York Zoological Society 

 and the American Museum of Natural History. 



Of course we speak only to the extent of our 

 knowledge; and if there are other exceptions to 

 be noted, we will welcome them. 



The amount of highly specialized "investiga- 

 tion" work that is being done by and through 

 our zoological and educational institutions, is 

 very great; but thus far no man has had the 

 hardihood to speak in print regarding its real 

 and practical value to the world. The amount 

 of abstruse technical scientific publications that 

 annually is turned out in America, is enormous. 

 Our government paj's for a quantity of it, and 

 private fortunes meet the bills of the remainder. 

 We do not complain about it; because our 

 withers are unwrung ; but the facts are of use 

 here to point a moral. 



While all this high-class scientific work has 

 been going on, year after year, — at New York, 

 Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, 

 Iowa City and elsewhere, — various bodies of 

 unscientific men and women have been engaged 

 in a constant warfare with wild-life annihila- 

 tors of a hundred different kinds. Even down 

 to 1896, the scientific ornithologists of America, 

 as a body, had done absolutely nothing in the 

 cause of bird protection; and to-day, also, there 

 are many ornithologists who for years have 

 drawn their annual bread and butter from orni- 

 thology, who seem to care nothing about our 

 birds save to write papers and books about their 

 dead remains. 



