﻿State Reports 273 



of the seasons, and the Audubon movement is changing the state from a vast 

 slaughter field of avian and mammalian life to a grand preserve the like 

 of which probably, when the ideal has been attained, will not be found else- 

 where on the face of the globe. One item, and a very important one, too, 

 was the successful effort to prevent the slaughter of Robins, that resort 

 here in millions annually to feed on the rich harvest of winter berries, 

 growing mute and fat, and, until the Audubon Societies called a halt;, were 

 slaughtered by thousands for household consumption and for the market. A 

 reformed market hunter told me that it had been his practice to encourage 

 men and boys to make nocturnal visits to Robin roosts, such as thickets and 

 cedar brakes, for the purpose of filling sacks with the bodies of the charm- 

 ing birds, having succeeded in the winter of 1902-3 in supplying 10,000 

 dozen Robins to the hotels and restaurants of the cities o"f Texas and 

 adjacent states. By our efforts we have already reduced Robin slaughter 

 80 per cent, and we intend to stop it altogether during the approaching 

 winter, when the lovely migrants return. 



"The Texas Audubon Society has enlisted the women's clubs, the 

 educators, the newspapers and periodicals and the railway companies in the 

 noble cause of protection, and is now at work disarming the school boys of 

 * niggershooters ' and target guns, at the same time teaching, by lantern 

 lectures, newspaper articles and distribution of literature, the evils of de- 

 struction, the inexpressible merit of preservation. The literature we have 

 been distributing was derived from the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies and from the United States Department of Agriculture. Probably 

 5,000 Audubon leaflets and an equal number of department bulletins and 

 reports have, through our agency, been placed in the hands of the appreci- 

 ative people of Texas, and in due time this mighty state will become equal 

 to any of the sisterhood as to bird and animal protection. Such will be the 

 case when the high standard we aim at has been attained. 



" In 1903, prior to the existence of our organization as a state body, the 

 chief workers who belonged to local organizations, and who now constitute 

 the backbone of the state Society, secured the enactment of the Texas Bird 

 and Game Law, with its superb provisions, above all others the section pro- 

 hibiting marketing of birds and game, and transportation for market by the 

 express and railroad companies, giving us the complete benefit of federal 

 laws and reinforcing the state authorities with the powerful arm of the 

 National government in the suppression of those arch annihilators — the pot- 

 hunters. When the Legislature met in 1904, the market hunters were at 

 Austin, the state capital, with a strong lobby, seeking the repeal, if possible, 

 or at least the adoption of a weakening amendment of the tenth section, 

 which section of the Texas Bird and Game Law prevents, under penalty, 

 marketing and transportation, and, therefore, puts the pot-hunter out of 

 business. The Texas Audubon Society, then only four months in existence, 



