Vol. XIV 
ae Report of Committee on Bird Protection. 29 
extermination of the Herons of Lower California. The follow- 
eing extracts are from letters from Mr. Anthony to Mr. Stone, 
dated April 5 and May 3, 1896. 
“T see by the January ‘Auk’ that you are a member of the 
new Committee on Protection of North American Birds. The 
subject is one in which I have been, and still am, very much in- 
terested; of late, however, I have about given up ever seeing 
anything done for the few Herons that are left. The fact that a 
new Committee has been appointed would seem to indicate that 
something was to be done, but what? Has any plan been 
proposed ? 
“J have for several years thought of all sorts of impossible 
plans for protection, but could never hit upon anything that I 
thought would do any good. If we could get one or two journals 
like ‘ Harper’s Bazar’ to cry down the custom of wearing birds, 
advising something in their place, the fight would be short. I 
think that about half the women who wear Heron plumes honestly 
believe they are not feathers; and then, also, education is needed. 
I often, when I szold at such head-wear, am somewhat taken 
down by: ‘ The idea! that ‘aigrette’ never saw a bird. They are 
simply manufactured feathers,’ etc. 
“ The slaughter has begun here on this coast in all its glory. 
Eastern firms are sending out great inducements to anyone they 
think will hunt or buy for them. Papers like the San Francisco 
‘ Call,’ etc., in their Sunday editions, print accounts several columns 
in length of how someone made some fabulous sum in a few 
weeks shooting Herons for their plumes ‘ which are worth several 
times their weight in gold,’ etc., and every such article does vast 
harm. 
“ As a result, all the Indians on the Colorado River below 
Yuma, and many white men also, are hard at work killing off the 
birds that nest in considerable numbers on the islands in the 
delta and along the extensive lagoons of that region. ‘This year 
they have got into Magdelena Bay, where countless thousands 
have heretofore nested in safety, but at the rate they are now 
being killed they cannot last long. 
“T have carefully avoided publishing anything regarding the 
very extensive nesting colonies of Terns, Herons, etc., of Lower 
