980 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



not having ourselves, we are unable to understand. That 

 sense which directs the carrier pigeon back to the home 

 loft, five days' journey distant, is probably the same that 

 guides all birds on their migrations, and we call it a 

 sense of direction. There have been numerous observa- 

 tions to support this theory and some modern experi- 

 ments upon terns carried in the hold of a ship 1,000 

 miles out of the range of the species, which, when re- 

 leased, flew back directly to their nests, have conclu- 

 sively shown that birds do have this sense. But just 

 what the sense is and what controls it we have yet to 

 learn. 



BIRD LIFE IN OCTOBER 



October is a month of changes. The killing frosts 

 have nipped the leaves and every gust of wind sends 

 fluttering showers to the ground. The gray skies, the 

 purple hills and the golden trees are preparing us for 

 winter. Bird life, too, is changing. Although some of 

 our summer birds, even among the warblers and fly- 

 catchers, still cling to their posts, before the month has 

 run its course all but a few of the hardy seed-eating 

 sparrows and blackbirds will be gone. The last of the 

 transient visitors that nest in northern Canada and win- 

 ter in Central or South America will pass through and 

 the hardy winter residents will arrive. The waterfowl 

 which have been straggling along since the middle of 



August or September are now receiving added impetus 

 from the northern forests, and toward the last of the 

 month great flocks will fill the air and cover favored 

 ponds. 



Thickets and the borders of woodlands now teem with 

 various species of sparrows, and overgrown fields, where 

 they are busy consuming great quantities of weed seed, 

 resound with their calls. A few vigorous individuals 

 among the song sparrows and white-throats have more 

 than regained the vitality lost through the moulting sea- 

 son and now sing with almost spring-time fervor. The 

 majority, however, if they sing at all, do so in subdued 

 tones that are difficult to recognize. 



Certain shrubs and vines now bear fruit that attracts 

 many birds. The wild grape and the Virginia creeper 

 are thronging with late thrushes and the bayberry draws 

 flocks of myrtle warblers. If one has been feeding the 

 winter birds in previous years, they will now begin to 

 come back to the feeding station in search of the food 

 which they grew accustomed to find. 



October also begins the real hunting season when the 

 sportsman dons his khakis and tramps the woods for 

 grouse and woodcock or wades the marshes for ducks 

 and snipe. It is legitimate sport and these are birds pre- 

 eminent as game birds that serve man best in this 

 capacity. 



Forestry at the Exposition 



American forestry association day at 



/ \ the Panama-Pacific Exposition is Wednesday, Oc- 

 * *tober 20. The meeting will be held in the Lum- 

 bermen's Building on the Exposition grounds, the presi- 

 dent. Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president of Lehigh 

 University, presiding. Foresters from all over the United 

 States, Pacific Coast members of the Association and 

 others who are attending the Exposition at the time will 

 be present, and with them will be numbers of the leading 

 lumbermen and loggers of the West. 



President Drinker will speak on the forestry situation 

 in the United States and F. C. Knapp, vice-president of 

 the Western Forestry and Conservation Congress, will 

 talk on the relation of the western foresters with those 

 of the east. P. S. Ridsdale, editor of American For- 

 KSTRY, will tell what the magazine is doing in furthering 

 forestry throughout the entire country and Director E. 

 A. Sterling will read a paper on the work of forest pro- 

 tective associations in the East, prepared by W. R. 

 Brown, president of the New Hampshire Timberland 

 Owners' Association. Chief Forester Henry S. Graves, 

 will speak about the Government and the lumber in- 

 dustry. H. D. Langille, of Portland, Ore., will discuss 

 the relations of timber owners and fire protective organi- 

 zations; E. A. Self ridge, Jr., president of the California 

 Protective Association, will talk about taxation and for- 



estry and there will be other discussions and addresses 

 on subjects related to forestry. 



The first day of the week, the eighteenth, will be de- 

 voted to a meeting of the Society of American Foresters, 

 also at the Lumbermen's Building. There will be ad- 

 dresses by Chief Forester Graves on the forester's ideals ; 

 by Coert DuBois on the forester's opportunities; by D. 

 T. Mason on what the Society has done and is doing for 

 foresters; by Dr. B. E. Fernow on the forester's profes- 

 sional ethics ; by G. M. Cornwall on the forester's duties 

 toward lumbering; by F. E. Olmstead on the lumber- 

 men's duties toward forestry ; by Judson F. Clark on the 

 place of logging engineering in forestry ; by A. F. Fischer 

 on the forests of the Philippines and by H. M. Curran 

 on the forests of the Argentine Republic. 



Tuesday, the nineteenth, will be devoted to meetings 

 of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association 

 to be taken up largely by addresses and discussions on 

 the various problems of forest fire protective work, and 

 on Thursday, the twenty-first, the Pacific Logging Con- 

 gress will meet in annual session. The remaining two 

 days of the week will be spent by those who wish to go 

 on an excusion to the redwood logging camps of the Pa- 

 cific Lumber Company and the Hammond Lumber Com- 

 pany at Scotia, Eureka and Samoa in northern California. 



