THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



A NOTE OF APPRECIATION 



AN IMMENSE wave of interest in birds recently swept over the 

 country where less than a generation ago was complete indifference 

 to their extermination. Why this change of the people's thought? 

 Largely as the logical result of persistent and highly intelligent edu- 

 cative work by the Audubon Societies, directed by scientific and 

 altruistic men and women, in reaching school children, clubs of 

 many kinds, granges, editors, and legislators. Vast quantities of 

 well-written pamphlets and beautiful colored pictures, such as are 

 used to illustrate this book, are distributed annually; bird clubs 

 are actively at work all over the country; Junior Audubon classes 

 graduate fresh recruits; wardens are safeguarding the breeding 

 grounds of the egret, gull, tern, eider, and other birds dangerously 

 near the vanishing point; bird sanctuaries have been established 

 in countless parks, cemeteries, private estates, and public domains; 

 the making of bird houses, fountains, and restaurants has suddenly 

 become a well-advertised business as well as a pastime for every 

 boy and girl who can handle a hammer; people are planting trees, 

 shrubs, and vines especially to attract birds, and they systematically 

 feed them all winter; Aubudon field agents are lecturing, dissemin- 

 ating literature, button-holing legislators, and looking out for the 

 birds' interests generally in State and National Capitols, interests 

 now backed up by intelligent public opinion so strong as to make 

 the ultimate passage of protective laws in every state of the Union 

 a foregone conclusion. 



The National Conscience was awakened by the demonstration 

 of the birds' vast economic value to the country; and with the wide- 

 spread interest now taken in birds as important factors in our 

 agricultural wealth comes a more lively interest in them as neigh- 

 bors. Indeed, a more sane and healthful and sympathetic view 

 of all Nature follows an introduction to the birds that play so 



