9 The education of a Seton Indian 



precise and more detailed information on the habits and require- 

 ments of certain North American birds that were either in im- 

 mediate danger of extinction or on the road that would lead to 

 that state. Through the years the National Audubon Society had 

 become primarily an educational institution and instrument, but 

 its first breath of life had been taken many years before on a note 

 of urgency and of militant action. As a minority group with. a 

 dramatic cause to plead, it had reached the hearts of men (and of 

 legislators!), and thereby not only saved the egrets in this country 

 but made bird protection a matter of popular and public-spirited 

 concern. Now, with the rapid growth of human populations and the 

 unprecedented advance of the relentless tentacles of the Machine 

 Age, certain highly specialized bird species faced new dangers. The 

 combined protection of laws, wardens to enforce them, and in- 

 violate sanctuaries, a formula that had worked so well heretofore, 

 was no longer enough in the case of birds like the ivory-billed 

 woodpecker, the California condor, the roseate spoonbill, and the 

 whooping crane. An entirely new concept and method of ap- 

 proach was needed, and this the Audubon research program set out 

 to discover and put into operation. 



During these intervening five years from 1930 to 1935 a great 

 many things had been happening, to me as well as to the Audubon 

 Society. For one thing, I had become an active member of the 

 Linnaean Society of New York, a scientific group interested chiefly 

 in observations and studies of birds in the New York City region. 

 The membership was made up of amateurs and professionals alike. 

 Here I met men like Joe Hickey, Allan Cruickshank, Bill Vogt, 

 Charlie Urner, Lester Walsh, Roger Peterson, and many others. 

 With some of them I was to be associated, as close friend and co- 

 worker, throughout the rest of my professional life. And here too 

 I began an important phase of the educational process I was already 

 undergoing in the course of my duties with the Audubon Society. 

 Ernest Golsan Holt had been added to our staff in 1932 in the newly 

 created post of Sanctuary Director, and I was to learn much from 

 his long experience and careful scientific methods. When Evelyn 

 and I were finally married the following year, Ernest and Margaret 

 Holt stood up with us, beside my mother and my brother John, 



