Io6 Re;p07-t of Conunittee on Bird Protection. Ljan. 



the law have not resulted in anything save some promises of aid 

 and have helped in interesting other clubs ; that was last spring. 

 After a few weeks I shall begin again to claim their attention." 



Missouri. 



In Missouri no organized effort has been made, although some 

 individual work has been done. Mr. O. Widmann, of our Com- 

 mittee, reports : " No Bird Day has been established in Missouri, 

 neither do I think that, unassisted by regular teaching, it would 

 be of much more good than creating another half-holiday for the 

 teachers and pupils, something like Arbor Day. Mr. Baskett 

 .made some effort in its behalf in the Missouri 'School Journal ' 

 last June, and he says that the press of the State took it up for a 

 little while, but nothing came of it. The introduction of the study 

 of birds in schools has never been discussed anywhere in our 

 State, which does not yet seem to be ripe for such accomplish- 

 ments. There is no zoology taught in our schools, not even in 

 the high schools. 



" No attempt has been made toward establishing an Audubon 

 Society, but in the show-windows of the St. Louis milliners, more 

 birds are to be seen on the hats than ever before, and in their 

 advertisements they boast of an immense stock and very low 

 prices. We have certainly bird laws in the State of Missouri, but 

 who ever heard of them ? They are good enough as far as they 

 go, though they make bad blunders, as for instance placing the 

 Meadow-larks among the game birds. These bird laws have 

 never been enforced, and nobody pays the least attention to 

 them. In some Counties they try to stop Sabbath shooting ; 

 that is about as far as they can hope to get. The hunting itself, 

 and the slaughtering of innocent birds, is such a sacred priv- 

 ilege of the son of this ' land of the free ' that nobody dares 

 to interfere. Our colored brothers are especially prominent 

 in the enjoyment of this privilege, and with many of our white 

 as well as colored citizens the right to slaughter is the ideal pre- 

 rogative of the American and the true exponent of liberty. The 

 acknowledgment of this right to hunt and shoot seems to be uni- 

 versal. Only a few weeks ago a five year old girl was killed by 



