300 Bird - Lore 



birds breed there. All the sea-birds in the locality resort there ever}' night 

 to roost, also swarms of Ground Doves. 



The Association has already secured six reserxations, or bird refuges, and 

 the directors expect to be able to secure additional ones in the near future. 

 Reservations can be secured onh" w^hen the property is still owned by the 

 General Government. Where a colony is located on an island or other prop- 

 erty owned by a state, corporation or individual, other methods of control 

 obtain. An effort is now being made to purchase from a state an island on 

 w^hich there is a large colony of Herring Gulls. The Louisiana Audubon 

 Society has taken a ten gears' lease of twenty-two islands, each of which is 

 the breeding place of large colonies of birds, such as Laughing Gulls, Foster's 

 Common, Royal and Cabot's Terns, and Black Skimmers. They are also 

 negotiating for the purchase of an island containing over 1,000 acres which 

 now belongs to the State of Louisiana. The warden who has charge of 

 Breton Island Reser\-ation in Louisiana will also guard the territor\" owned 

 or leased by the Louisiana Society. This territory is quite large, and it 

 is absolutely necessary that our warden should be supplied with a power- 

 ful seagoing launch in order that he may rapidly and safely move from island 

 to island during the breeding season so the birds may always be assured of 

 protection. Dependence on a sailing craft is too uncertain. During the pres- 

 ent winter it is purposed to build on Breton Island a small house of refuge, 

 which may be used by the wardens or any seamen or fishermen in distress. 

 As there is no drinking-water on the Reservation, it is also purposed to sink 

 a weU by the cabin. This will render it unnecessary for our warden to 

 travel to the mainland, a distance of 100 miles, for a fresh supply of 

 water. 



Warden System. — The number of wardens in the employ of the Asso- 

 ciation has been larger during the present year than ever before, and the 

 number wiU probably increase even- year as new colonies of birds are dis- 

 covered. As the Association grows stronger in members, and consequently 

 has more money to spend, it is purposed to make special investigations of tne 

 bird-life of portions of the coast of which we now have only a superficial 

 knowledge. L'ndoubtedly many large breeding places will be discovered. 

 The magnificent results that have been obtained on the coasts of Maine, 

 Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana 

 and Oregon, and, in the interior, in New York, Alichigan and Oregon, 

 make the directors of the Association feel fully warranted in enlarging this 

 valuable means of bird protection. The members and the public must al- 

 ways bear in mind that this Association has grown from the appeal made in 

 1900 to bird lovers, by Abbott H. Thayer, for special protection to sea-birds 

 during the breeding season, and it is therefore incumbent upon us, as far as 

 lies in our power, to carry out the original idea. The coasts of South 

 Carolina, Georgia, parts of Florida, and especially the Gulf Coast from west 



