204 



Bird - Lore 



and Mr. Henry Olds, in Takoma and Gar- 

 rett Park, suburbs of Washington. 



In legislation we have made some prog- 

 ress, the Audubon Society, in cooperation 

 with the Fish and Game Association, 

 having prepared an amendment to the 

 present game law, based upon the A. O. 

 U. model bird law, and it has been favor- 

 ably reported by the District Committee, 

 both in the House and Senate. We have 

 printed and circulated a portion of the 

 existing District game laws. 



There is no evidence, so far, of the sale 

 in the markets of Robins as game birds, 

 but the prevention of their sale requires 

 eternal vigilance. Each year brings added 

 encouragement, and we feel especially 

 pleased that our efforts to have the study 

 of birds hold a prominent place in the 

 nature work of the schools has been 

 entirely successful. 



Jeanie Maury Patten, Secretary. 



The Destruction of Ptarmigan for 

 Millinery Purposes 



Our attention has been called to some 

 unquestionably authentic, and hence un- 

 usually valuable statistics in regard to 

 the destruction for millinery purposes of 

 Ptarmigan or Willow Grouse in northern 

 Russia, contained in ' A Russian Province 

 of the North ' by Alexander Platonovich 

 Engelhardt, governor of the Province of 

 Archangel (Lippincott, 1899). 



Governor Engelhardt states that while 



the birds' bodies are worth about one- 

 half a cent each, their wings bring a 

 cent and a half a pair, and to supply the 

 feather dealers' unlimited demands, the 

 birds are killed in such enormous num- 

 bers that a single shipment from Arch- 

 angel, on August 17, 1898, consisted of 

 ten tons of ivings ! 



Among the tables in the appendix of 

 tnis volume is one giving the govern- 

 ment's record of game killed each year, 

 from which it would appear that the ac- 

 tive demand for the wings of Grouse or 

 Ptarmigan began in 1894. Thus, we 

 learn from this table that in 1893 there 

 were recorded as killed 117,258 Willow 

 and Hazel Grouse, but in 1894 the num- 

 ber was 428,094 ; in 1895,412,802; in 1896, 

 652,530, and in 1897, 485,332. In four 

 years, therefore, nearly 2,000,000 Grouse 

 were recorded as killed in the single 

 Province of Archangel — and doubtless 

 many more were destroyed of which no 

 record was made. 



The continued destruction of these 

 birds at this rate means their early ex- 

 termination, when the inhabitants of this 

 comparatively barren region will have 

 been deprived of an important source of 

 food supply, which, properly used, should 

 prove exhaustless. 



Sentiment aside, therefore, the destruc- 

 tion of Grouse in northern Russia for 

 millinery purposes, raises a question in 

 economics of the first importance. — F. 

 M. C. 



ptarmigan's wing; winter plumage length 7-71^ IN. 



Note the short outer first feather. In the Pigeon's wing the first three feathers 

 are of about equal length. 



