518 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The reduction in the amount of native birds" feathers 

 worn as milliner}' ornaments and the falling off in the traf- 

 fic and business of taxidermists are among the visible results 

 of the change of sentiment, which has been wrought largely 

 through the influence of the Audubon Society. 



An increased interest in animated nature wa>s aroused and 

 fostered more than twenty-five years ago in the State by the 

 Boston Society of Natural History and the Worcester Nat- 

 ural History Society. Nature study has grown in popu- 

 larity in many States ever since. Massachusetts has kept 

 well on the crest of the great wave of interest in animated 

 nature which has swept over the country. This movement 

 will result in lamentable failure, unless it protects from ex- 

 tir})ation those plants and animals the study of which is one 

 of its chief reasons for existence. The work of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union has accomplished more for the 

 protection of sea birds and shore birds on their breeding 

 grounds than that of any other organization. It is due to 

 this work that gulls, terns, other sea birds and shore birds 

 breeding along both coasts of the United States have been 

 saved from decimation or extirpation at the hands of gun- 

 ners, milliners, hunters and eggers. This work has now 

 been transferred to the recently organized National Associa- 

 tion of Audul)on Societies. 



Every member of the State Board of Agriculture, every 

 branch of the League of American Sportsmen, every nat- 

 ural history club or society, every Agassiz chapter, every 

 grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, every sportsmen's 

 organization, should give active support to all measures that 

 will help to maintain or increase the numbers of useful in- 

 sectivorous birds, game birds, shore birds and wild fowl, 

 and all should hold up the hands of the United States Bio- 

 logical Survey in securing consistent State laws to protect 

 the birds during their migrations both north and south. 

 The publication and distribution of literature regarding the 

 usefulness of birds and the necessity for their protection 

 should be undertaken by all such societies. The public press 

 can help much by printing short articles on these subjects. 



