﻿274 Bird - Lore 



took the lead and rallied the protectionists. Headquarters were established 

 in the largest hotels at the state capital, in rooms close to those occupied by 

 the pot-hunters' lobby. An active personal canvass was made of both 

 houses. The desks of the state lawmakers were supplied daily with printed 

 arguments. Victory crowned the effort of the protectors. Vanquished, the 

 pot-hunters withdrew. The tenth section and all the other sections of the 

 Texas Bird and Game Law remained intact on the statute books, and there 

 was rejoicing all along the line. 



"The Texas Audubon Society started the movement against vagrant cats, 

 an evil of great extent in the municipalities, encouraging the chloroforming 

 of mongrel litters, destined to grow up and become ravenous bird-eaters. 

 The Texas Audubon Society put on foot the movement for establishing 

 interior preserves, wherein all wild life shall be immune from destroying 

 agencies. We have reported violations to the grand juries and to the prose- 

 cuting officers of the state, and we have procured about 500 convictions 

 since we took up the work. In the large cities, such as Dallas, Houston, 

 Galveston, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin and San Antonio, we have enlisted 

 the ladies against bird plumes. We have assisted in explorations of the long 

 Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in the interest of Terns, Gulls and the 

 entire list of shore-birds. 



"We have protected the water-fowl, the Quail, the Grouse, the Turkey, 

 the Robin, the Dove, and the four-footed game. We called attention to 

 the rapid annihilation of the antelope, deer and other varieties of big game; 

 and when our warden system, supported by a gunner's license, is enacted, 

 which will be the case when the next legislature meets, we shall have 

 accomplished a task which future generations cannot fail to appreciate. 



' A feature of our work was the calling of public attention to the value 

 of peccaries as exterminators of rattlesnakes, which increased as the prairie- 

 dogs disappeared, occupying the vacant dog holes. The peccaries were 

 being swept from the face of the earth, and it was believed that they were 

 of no value. We demonstrated that they were a necessary provision of 

 nature, and the relentless slaughter has been checked. 



'The Texas Audubon Society ascertained that the Guan, a bird com- 

 monly called the Chachalaca, was one of the most valuable exterminators of 

 boll-weevil, and in that respect was nearly equal to the Bull-bat, having 

 the advantage of the Bull-bat in being a scratcher, and able, therefore, to 

 destroy the weevil during their period of hibernation. Texas is the only 

 state in the union in which the Guan, or, to call him by his onomatopoeic 

 name, the Chachalaca, makes his habitat, and, until of recent years, no 

 Guans were found fifty miles north of the Rio Grande. We demonstrated 

 that they were as easy to propagate as Pheasants or Guineas, and it is now 

 a fact that cotton fields frequented by Chachalacas are kept free of that 

 deadly pest of cotton, the Mexican boll-weevil. We proved that the Bull- 



