288 Bird -Lore 



REPORTS OF FIELD AGENTS 



REPORT OF EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH 



The work undertaken by your agent in New England during the year has 

 included the following principal lines of action: (i) Educational and publicity 

 work, (2) legislative work, (3) investigation of the present status of the wild 

 fowl, shore-birds and sea-birds and measures needed for their protection, (4) 

 the work of organization. 



A new feature of the educational work consisted in the publication, in fifty 

 New England newspapers, of a series of articles on birds and bird protection, 

 written monthly or semi-monthly as time allowed. This series has been continued 

 through the year. Eighty-two talks and lectures on the utility of birds and the 

 means of attracting and protecting them have been given in Connecticut, Rhode 

 Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. The audiences have con- 

 sisted mainly of students of universities, colleges and schools, and members of 

 clubs and farmers' organizations, aggregating nearly twenty thousand people. 

 Most of these talks were illustrated with lantern slides or colored charts. They 

 have resulted in a great deal of practical work among the young people, many 

 of whom have begun to feed birds and put up, bird-houses. No work has been 

 done in Vermont this year; but it may be possible to reach that state before the 

 end of the season. 



The detailed results of the legislative work of the year have been given already 

 in Bird-Lore, but may be reviewed briefly here. This work was interfered 

 with somewhat by lecture engagements, and owing to this and certain peculiar 

 conditions was not uniformly successful; but all bills adverse to bird protection 

 were defeated. In Massachusetts, the following were the principal bills passed: 

 An act requiring the licensing of all resident hunters, another giving the deputies 

 or game wardens the right to arrest, without a warrant, suspected persons refus- 

 ing to exhibit their game on demand; another shortening the open season on 

 upland game-birds, two establishing state forest tracts or reservations, and one 

 estaohshing the office of State Ornithologist. 



The first two acts will help much in the enforcement of the laws for the 

 conservation of game and birds. The establishment of an official State Orni- 

 thologist in every state of the union would be a benefit. Such an official could 

 save the people of any state far more than his salary each year by instructing 

 the people in the economic value of birds and the necessity for their protection. 



In Rhode Island an act was passed establishing a close season on all shore 

 birds from January 1, to August 1, thus giving shore-birds their first real statu- 

 tory protection in that state, and an additional appropriation was secured for the 

 use of the Bird Commissioners. No other New England state has legislative 

 sessions in 1908 except Vermont, where the legislature does not convene until 

 October, or after the date of this report. 



