"j! 'j. Report of Committee on Bird Protection. I07 



a negro shooting Meadow-larks on a vacant lot in the city of 

 Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. Nobody thought of prosecut- 

 ing the negro ; it was simply an accident. The negro saw the 

 children, but his excuse was, that he did not know his gun would 

 carry that far. 



" What will you do with Bird Days and Audubon Societies 

 among a population which allows negroes to shoot Meadow-larks 

 on city lots, and does not even think of punishing those who 

 carelessly destroy precious human life. 



" Finally you ask for suggestions : here is one of a radical 

 nature. Get Congress to put enough taxes on the manufacture 

 and sale of gunpowder to raise its price to at least tv.-o dollars a 

 pound, and put a revenue stamp on every shell and cartridge. 

 If the government can control the liquor traffic why not also gun- 

 powder ? The one is as bad as the other." 



Colorado. 



Early in the year the Chairman addressed a letter to the Presi- 

 dent of the Woman's Club, Denver, Colorado, asking for the co- 

 operation of that Club to create a sentiment against the use of 

 feathers of all wild birds for millinery purpose. The matter 

 seems to have been taken up by the Colorado Humane Society. 



Mrs. Francis B. Hill, the Secretary of the El Paso branch, 

 writes : " The subject of Mr. Butcher's letter is one that has 

 engaged the earnest attention of this society for several years 

 past; literature on the subject has been generously distributed, 

 and the sympathy of the local press enlisted, which has helped 

 the cause by frequent articles. It has been brought to the 

 notice of the superintendents of all the schools, and this year 

 our society was instrumental in organizing an Audubon Society, 

 of which Mr. F. O. Wood of Colorado Springs is President." 



Mr. Whitehead, the General Secretary of the State Society, 

 writes : " In Denver we have done about what has been done in 

 Colorado Springs except that we have no organized Audubon 

 Society. Two ordinances, copies of which are attached, we had 

 passed last spring, and they are read occasionally in all the city 

 schools with remarkable results. 



