°8 8 J ]\cport oj Coiiimiitec on JWrd I'rolvrtiuii. 8 I 



REPORT OF THE A. O. U. COMMITTEE ON PROTEC- 

 TION OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



By a resolution duly carried at the last annual meeting of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union, the Committee on Protection of 

 North American Birds was authorized to increase its numbers 

 from members of the Society, and by such vested authority the 

 following named persons were added to the Committee, viz.: Mr. 

 Otto Widmann, Old Orchard, Mo.; Mr. A. W. Anthony, San 

 Diego, Cal.; Mr. E. H. Forbush, Maiden, Mass.; Mrs. E. Irene 

 Rood, Chicago, 111. ; Mrs. Julia Stockton Robins, Philadelphia, 

 Penn. ; Miss Florence A. Merriam, Washington, D. C; Mrs. 

 Olive Thorne Miller, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Mrs. L. M. Stephenson, 

 Helena, Ark., and Dr. T. S. Palmer, Washington, D. C. 



All of the members have been actively engaged during the 

 past year in advancing the work of this Committee in its various 

 channels, and we feel that the very largely-increased interest 

 taken in birds and in their protection has been in great measure 

 the result of these efforts. 



While thousands of leaflets have been distributed and column 

 after column has appeared in the public press relative to the 

 frightful cruelty necessitated by the use of wild birds' feathers 

 for millinery ornaments, yet the plea of the great majority of the 

 women who still continue to use feathers is that of ignorance. 

 This is largely due, I think, to an unwillingness to assume an 

 individual responsibility. They are like the Buddhist priest who 

 had been preaching strongly against the use of animal food, 

 although he sometimes ate it himself. In explaining what his 

 religion required in the matter, he said : " I must not have any 

 animal killed that I may eat it, yet if it is served at the table in 

 any house where I am staying, and it is not provided expressly 

 for me, but in the ordinary course of things, then I may eat of it, 

 because then I am not personally responsible for the death of the 

 animal." This certainly is the position that women occupy rela- 

 tive to bird slaughter ; most of them know of the cruelty, and not 

 only the cruelty but the injury to agricultural interests, yet they 

 excuse themselves, as did the Buddhist priest, by saying: "The 



