320 



Bird - Lore 



that the states might raise adequate funds 

 for warden service — all these and many 

 others occupied his attention. He jour- 

 neyed to the legislatures of a dozen or more 

 states, from Maine to Louisiana, in behalf 

 of better bird-laws — to some of the state 

 capitals repeatedly, and to Albany and 

 Trenton annually, when important bird- 

 bills were under consideration. The suc- 

 cessful results of the work 

 under the Thayer Fund, 

 which for the first time in 

 this country provided the 

 means for employing ward- 

 ens to guard the colonies 

 of breeding sea-birds along 

 the coast, naturally led to 

 plans for establishing per- 

 manent bird refuges. Peli- 

 can Island in Florida was 

 selected for the initial 

 experiment, and, on his 

 recommendation, made 

 through the United States 

 Department of Agricul- 

 ture, President Roosevelt, 

 on March 14, 1903, re- 

 served the island as "a 

 preserve and breeding ground for native 

 birds" and thus established the first 

 National Bird Reservation. 



The rapidly increasing activities of the 

 National Association were seriously handi- 

 capped by lack of adequate funds and 

 Mr. Butcher, who devoted much time 

 and energy to meeting the deficiency, was 

 accustomed to say that the Association 

 should have an endowment fund of a mil- 

 lion dollars. By a most fortunate circum- 

 stance the work of the Association attracted 

 the attention of the late Albert Wilcox, 

 who, after meeting its president, made the 

 Association one of the residuary legatees 

 under his will. Upon his death, which 

 occurred in 1906, the National Association 

 received a bequest of $331,072 and the per- 

 manency of its work was at once assured. 

 Recognition of Mr. Butcher's efforts was 

 also manifested in other ways both at home 

 and abroad. The Camp-Fire Club of 

 America conferred upon him its gold medal 

 in appreciation of his efforts in behalf of 



WILLIAM DUTCHER WHEN 

 A YOUNG MAN 



the protection of wild life, and in England 

 the Royal Society for the Protection of 

 Birds made him one of its Honorary 

 Fellows. 



The year 1910 may be regarded as the 

 crowning point of Mr. Butcher's work, 

 when he went abroad as the representative 

 of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies. In the summer of that year he 

 attended the International 

 Congress of Ornithology 

 in Berlin, where on behalf 

 of the Association he ex- 

 tended an invitation to 

 the Congress to hold its 

 next meeting in the United 

 States, was appointed a 

 member of the Interna- 

 tional Committee on Pro- 

 tection of Birds, and pre- 

 sented a paper on 'Inter- 

 national Bird-Protection.' 

 This was his last formal 

 publication. Three months 

 after his return to .New 

 York City he suffered a 

 stroke of apoplexy which 

 completely paralyzed his 

 right side and left him speechless. Of the 

 heroic patience with which he endured his 

 affliction for nearly ten years it is unneces- 

 sary to speak in this connection further than 

 to mention that during all this time he never 

 lost his interest in birds. When other topics 

 failed to arouse his enthusiasm, he still took 

 delight in hearing and reading about his 

 favorite subject of bird-protection, and, 

 in spite of suffering and sorrow, he kept 

 fully informed of the progress of the work. 

 Before his death he at least had the satis- 

 faction of knowing that he had not labored 

 in vain, and he was able to witness the suc- 

 cessful outcome of many of the projects to 

 which he ha'd given his best energies. 

 Traffic in plumage had been restricted by 

 the Tariff Act, and spring shooting and the 

 sale of aigrettes and migratory birds pro- 

 hibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. 

 The National Bird Reservations had in- 

 creased to more than 70, the annual income 

 of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies, through the energy and skillful 



