396 Bird - Lore 



interested in practical work with birds. Especial interest was developed in 

 Maine, and tours were made, taking in a number of the principal cities, such 

 as Augusta, Lewiston, Farmington, and Machias. Each year the Department 

 has furnished a lecture in the course on game-breeding at Cornell University — 

 this year on the breeding of the Ruffed Grouse. Another lecture was at the 

 New York 'State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. The work at 

 Amston, Conn., has been continued. The Summer School was successful, with 

 a good company of students, mostly educators, including a captain in the Red 

 Cross organization who desired to impart the course to tuberculosis patients 

 and convalescents. Another student was a city minister who desired to pass 

 on the knowledge to the Boy Scouts. One pupil, a business woman, active in 

 Audubon work, said on leaving that it had been the happiest vacation experi- 

 ence of her life. 



The research work proved interesting and instructive. The small birds 

 nested abundantly, using many nesting-boxes. Ruffed Grouse made consider- 

 able increase, and young Pheasants, liberated last season, wintered and 

 remained to breed all over the estate. About one thousand Pheasants were 

 raised. This number would have been doubled but for an invasion of armies 

 of the rose chafer, comparable to "the plagues of Egypt." These bugs are 

 poisonous to all young birds, including domestic poultry. A few broods of 

 Quail were raised, but the eggs were unusually few and infertile, perhaps owing 

 to exhaustion from the preceding severe winter. The results with wild Ducks 

 were especially interesting. Wood Ducks laid early and abundantly, begin- 

 ning April I, averaging over twenty eggs per pair, from which we raised a fine 

 breeding-stock. A flock of Black Ducks was raised the third generation from 

 the wild, which seem to have lost all the supposedly irradicable wildness of 

 the species. Young Pintails and Redheads were raised from eggs laid in the 

 enclosure. Black Ducks and a Redhead laid in elevated Wood Duck boxes, and 

 both in the same nest, by way of novelty. A wild pair of Wood Ducks brought 

 off a brood from one of our artificial boxes placed in a tree on the island in 

 our lake. Much new detailed material of practical value has been gathered, 

 which should be published as a new bulletin when financial conditions improve. 



A series of new motion pictures of bird-life has been begun under auspices of 

 the Chester-Outing pictures, in cooperation with this Association, which should 

 help to further popularize interest in birds, give us publicity in new channels, 

 and also bring in added funds. The first release is a story of a famous rookery 

 of Night Herons in old New England. 



REPORT OF MRS. MARY S. SAGE, SCHOOL AGENT 

 FOR LONG ISLAND 



During the year I have given 213 talks and lectures on Long Island, N. Y., 

 reaching in all over 12,500 children. Many of the schools are not equipped with 



