Part I.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



Legislation. 

 All the recommendations contained in my last annual report 

 were approved and adopted by the Board, and bills embodying 

 these suggestions were presented to the Legislature. House 

 No. 170 removed protection from the starling; House No. 172 

 provided for popular lectures on birds in the schools of the 

 State and for a State supervisor of bird study; House No. 173 

 authorized arbor and bird day exercises in the schools of the 

 Commonwealth, making arbor day also bird day; House No. 

 174 provided for a report on the birds of the Commonwealth 

 in two volumes with colored plates, and carried an appropria- 

 tion for drawing; House No. 175 provided for an assistant to 

 the State Ornithologist, and gave him the power to appoint 

 special observers to study the distribution of the birds of the 

 Commonwealth. This bill was passed with some amendments as 

 chapter 75 of the General Acts of 1917, but instead of appropriat- 

 ing SI, 200 for an assistant it allowed only S1,000. This was not 

 enough to secure the employment of a trained economic ornithol- 

 ogist. Accordingly Mrs. Alice B. Harrington, an experienced 

 stenographer having some knowledge of birds, was employed 

 as secretary to the ornithologist. House No. 173, designating 

 arbor day, the last Saturday in April, as bird day also, and 

 authorizing its observance in the schools of the Common- 

 wealth on the Friday preceding, was enacted. It also allowed 

 the State Board of Agriculture to prepare a leaflet annually for 

 distribution in the rural schools of the Commonwealth, but 

 provided no money for that purpose. All the other measures 

 recommended by the State Ornithologist, except House No. 

 172, were reported favorably by the legislative committee on 

 agriculture, but shortly afterward, war with Germany being 

 imminent, immense war appropriations were made by the Legis- 

 lature and, therefore. House Nos. 172 and 174 failed of passage. 

 An act was passed prohibiting the bringing of cats to the island 

 of Muskeget or the possession of cats on the island (chapter 

 40). This law was enacted to protect sea birds on the island, 

 which had been decimated by cats. A close season on water- 

 fowl in certain southeastern counties of the State was made from 

 January 16 to September 30 (chapter 73), but this act by its 



