THIRD ANNUAL EEPORT OF THE STATE 

 ORNITHOLOGIST. 



The Work of the Year. 

 Educational Work. 

 The demand for lectures by the State Ornithologist con- 

 tinues unabated. Thirty-seven free lectures have been given 

 during 1910. Engagements for five hundred might have been 

 taken had time permitted, but the work of preparing the spe- 

 cial report on wild fowl, game birds and shore birds, author- 

 ized by the Legislature in 1910, made it impossible to accept 

 many engagements to lecture. This report is still in process 

 of preparation, and will be ready for distribution during 

 the latter part of the year 1911. 



8ong Birds destroyed hy Aliens. 

 Some complaints have been received regarding the killing 

 of birds by foreigners. The census of 1905 gives the foreign- 

 born population of Massachusetts at 918,044. Many of these 

 aliens come from southern Europe, or from other countries 

 where the killing of song birds is a common practice. When 

 these people arrive in this country the tendency to continue 

 such depredations is very marked. A hunter's license law 

 which went into effect in the year 1909, and which requires 

 all aliens who hunt to pay a license fee of $15, has reduced 

 the number of foreign hunters. It has probably kept at 

 least 20,000 of them from hunting in Massachusetts, but 

 some are now evading the law by using short guns, that may 

 bo concealed in their clothing, or by utilizing traps, nets or 

 bird lime. Great numbers of small birds, such as flickers, 

 jays, robins, bluebirds, sparrows, thrushes and warblers, are 

 killed by these people and used for food. The frontispiece 



