146 DuTCHER, Report of Committee on Bird Protection. P^"^ 



zation as an Audubon Society. The enrolled members number 

 250 The local work done has been very satisfactory and its 

 influence is spreading to other portions of the State, two branch 

 societies having already been formed. They have succeeded in 

 interesting the children to an unusual degree by junior meetings 

 and bird walks. Two libraries of bird books are in circulation 

 among the districts schools, and have stimulated interest in bird 

 study. 



Virginia. 



Legislation. — The bird laws of this State are wholly bad ; very 

 few non-game birds are protected at all, some are protected during 

 a portion of the year, while that most destructive of all methods 

 of bird extermination, egging, is legalized by law during the early 

 weeks of the breeding season. 



The county system of local bird laws is in vogue, and it should 

 be superseded at once by a law covering the whole State. Bird 

 protection cannot successfully be promoted where the law protects 

 a species in one county and in an adjoining county no protection 

 is given. It is a well established legal proposition that wild birds 

 are an asset of the State and do not belong to the citizen as an 

 individual, therefore the State should provide a law for their pro- 

 tection and preservation, just as it does for any other of its val- 

 uable rights and assets. 



The A. O. U. members and the Audubon Society, as well as all 

 bird lovers, should combine in a strenuous effort to have the A. O. 

 U. model law adopted. At the last session of the legislature a 

 bill was introduced by Representative James R. Caton, at the 

 request of the Virginia Audubon Society, but it was not carried 

 through the House, although it was favorably reported and reached 

 its third reading. The session was short, and was largely taken 

 up with a constitutional amendment. 



The effort for a new bird law will be renewed at the coming 

 session of the legislature, and in the interim educational work will 

 be done through the press and by the distribution of leaflets, in 

 order that a public sentiment for bird protection may be aroused. 

 If from every portion of the State the constituents of the delegates 



