I'X2 DuTCHER, Report of Committee on Bird Protection. I jan 



warden in Monroe County. Contributions have also been given 

 by various members and friends of the Society to defray the salary 

 of the warden at Cape Sable from September to December, other- 

 wise a most efficient and valuable man could not have been kept 

 at his post, owing to lack of money in the Thayer Fund. A more 

 liberal support of the Thayer Fund is urged. 



"The Florida State Federation of Women's Clubs have a sub- 

 committee for the preservation of birds, and its chairman, Mrs. 

 Graves, has done efficient work at Greencove Springs and Ormond, 

 our Society helping by leaflets, charts, etc. 



Thanks are due to our vice-president, Mr. R. W. Williams, Jr., 

 of Tallahassee, who has rendered our Society and the State most 

 efficient aid toward bird protection, and for the efforts of Mr. W. N. 

 Sheats, State Superintendent of Instruction, in behalf of 'Nature 

 Study for Schools,' whereby the introduction of bird study is now 

 a possibility." 



Mr. R. W. Williams, Jr., the Florida member of the A. O. U. 

 Protection Committee, says: "The sentiment against the useless 

 slaughter of birds in my State is growing and I believe I foresee 

 an awakening to the true value of our avifauna. I was delighted 

 to receive information, a short time since, that ' bullbat ' shooting 

 had almost entirely ceased in my county. I wrote a very strong 

 letter of condemnation of the practise to an influential friend in 

 Tallahassee and requested him to use his utmost efforts to dis- 

 countenance the 'sport.' I was greatly pleased and gratified to 

 receive an assurance that he would do all in his power to discour- 

 age it. This, coming as it does from an old offender, is cheering. 



"During the last session of our Legislature in April and May, 

 1903, persistent effort was made to exclude from protection the 

 terns. Through the earnest effort of Dr. DeWitt Webb, a repre- 

 sentative of St. Johns County, we were able to defeat the measure 

 jn the Senate, notwathstanding its passage by the House. I would 

 be ungrateful if I did not also acknowledge with gratitude the 

 splendid service of Hon. W. Hunt Harris, the senator from Mon- 

 roe County, without whose assistance the bill might have passed 

 the Senate. The vote in the House was astonishingly encourag- 

 ing to those interested in bird protection, for, while the bill 

 passed that body, the minority vote nearly equalled that of the 



