Cl)e ^utiubon Societies 



" Yozt cannot with a scalpel find the poet's soul, 

 Nor yet the wild bird's song'." 



Edited by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright (President of tlie Audubon Society of the State of 

 •Connecticut), Fairfield, Conn., to whom all communications relating to the work of the Audubon 

 and other Bird Protective Societies should be addressed. Reports, etc., designed for this depart- 

 ment should be sent at least one month prior to the date of publication. 



DIRECTORY OF STATE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



With names and addresses iof(, their Secretaries. 



New Hampshire Mrs. F. W. Batchelder, Manchester. 



Massachusetts Miss Harriet E. Richards, care Boston Society of Natural History, Boston. 



Rhode Island Mrs. H. T. Grant, Jr., 187 Bowen street, Providence. 



•Connecticut Mrs. William Brown Glover, Fairfield. 



New York Miss Emma H. Lock wood, 243 West Seventy-fifth street. New York City. 



New Jersey Miss Anna Haviland, 53 Sandford Ave., Plainfield, N. J. 



Pennsylvania Mrs. Edward Robins, X14 South Twenty-first street, Philadelphia, 



District of Columbia Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. 



Wheeling, W. Va. (branch of Pa. Society) Elizabeth I. Cummins, 1314 Chapline street. Wheeling. 



■Ohio Miss Clara Russell, 903 Paradrome street, Cincinnati. 



Indiana Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. 



Illinois Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. 



Iowa Miss Nellie S. Board, Keokuk. 



Wisconsin Mrs. Gfi©RGE W. Peckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. 



Minnesota Mrs. J. P. Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul. 



Tennessee Mrs. C. C. Conner, Ripley. 



Texas Miss Cecile Seixas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. 



-California .' Mrs. George S. Gay, Redlands. 



Consistency. 



Audubonites may be divided into two 

 •classes as regards their attitude toward 

 the wearing of feathers, — the moderates 

 and the total abstainers. 



The moderates hold that they violate 

 none of the interests of bird protection 

 in its fullest sense by wearing the plumes 

 of game or food birds, or those of the 

 Ostrich, which is as legitimately raised 

 for its feathers as a sheep for its wool. 

 In short, they see the necessity of keep- 

 ing feather-wearing within conservative 

 bounds, and elect io take the individual 

 responsibility of so doing. 



The total abstainers say : " Let us break 

 ourselves altogether of the feather wear- 

 ing habit. We shall be more conspicuously 

 consistent as bird protectionists, and 

 we shall not be called upon to settle fine 

 points and follow difficult boundaries. 

 We need not know anything about 

 plumage, and never have to decide 

 whether the wings used by milliners are 

 really those of food birds, or the pinions 

 ■of song birds disguised with dye. Or 



if the fearfully manufactured confections 

 are the heads of real Owls and Parrots 

 twisted out of all semblance to nature, 

 or merely compounds of Chicken feath- 

 ers and celluloid." Both of these atti- 

 tudes are equally useful to the cause 

 if they are maintained consistently, but 

 inevitably the way of the total abstain- 

 ers is the easier of the two. The total 

 abstainers need not, to quote Hamlet, 

 "know a hawk from a handsaw." While, 

 in order to be consistent, the moderates 

 must be bird students of no mean in- 

 telligence if they would keep safely on 

 the exceedingly narrow pathway that di- 

 vides the feathers that may be, from 

 those that ??iiist not be worn, not alone 

 by Audubonites, but by any woman who 

 has either sense or sensibility. A path- 

 way ? A slack wire is the better simile, 

 so treacherous is the footing. 



What is it that causes the downfall 

 of many of the moderates, who know 

 the common birds fairly well, and could 

 not be hoodwinked into buying Egret's 

 plumes or dyed swallow wings ? 



70) 



