I Du-i(^HER, Report of Committee on Bird Protection. TO I 



SUPPLEMENT. 



REPORT OF THE A. O. U. COMMITTEE ON THE 

 PROTECTION OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



BY WILLIAM BUTCHER, CHAIRMAN. 



Flates III- VI. 



1 have considered the birds ; 



And I find their life good, 



And better the better understood. — George McDonald. 



The Scottish poet struck the keynote of bird protection when 

 he said, the more we study the Ufe of birds the better we under- 

 stand them, and he intimates that it is impossible to find anything 

 that is not good in bird life. 



Nearly a score of years since one of the Fellows of our Society, 

 the late George B. Sennett, first called the attention of ornitholo- 

 gists to the rapid disappearance of our non-game birds, especially 

 the water birds, owing to their use as millinery ornaments, this 

 fashion having then assumed alarming proportions. 



As the result of his alarm note, the original A. O. U. Bird Pro- 

 tection Committee was organized in 1886 and much good work 

 was accomplished ; later a National Aububon Society was organ- 

 ized and managed by ' Forest and Stream,' until it outgrew its pro- 

 moters, or the fashion of wearing the plumage of wild birds seemed 

 to decline, when the Audubon Society and the A. O. U. Protection 

 Committee ceased to exist, except in name. It was hoped that 

 the reform was a permanent one, but a few years later the fashion 

 revived to a greater extent than ever before. Coincident with 

 this revival a few local or State Audubon societies were organized, 

 and have since been doing splendid aggressive work. They are 

 confined, however, exclusively to localities where the most active 

 ornithological work has been done, notably, Massachusetts, Con- 

 necticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Necessarily the 

 work of these societies is local, and it was not until another orni- 

 thologist, Mr. Abbott H. Thayer, appealed to the bird-loving pub- 



