Results Achieved 295 



Reservations. — One of the most important results secured by this Association 

 •since its organization has been the large number of reservations set aside as bird 

 refuges and breeding homes by President Roosevelt. During the present year, 

 six have been added, all of which are the ancestral homes of birds, and they 

 will, in the future, be under the direct supervision of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. It is our function to investigate and discover bird-breeding 

 islands, rocks and keys; the locality and number and species of birds is reported to 

 the Department of the Interior, at Washington, and, if the property still belongs 

 to the Federal Government, an order is prepared for the signature of the Chief 

 Executive. This Society then selects a suitable person to act as a guard, who 

 is recommended for appointment as warden. He is then officially commissioned 

 by the Department of Agriculture at a nominal salary, which is supplemented 

 by additional compensation from this Association. Two of the new reservations, 

 'Tern Islands' and 'Shell Keys' in Louisiana, have already been reported in 

 'Bird-Lore' for September-October 1907, and the four additional ones are 

 now recorded. One is located on the Oregon coast and is known as 'Three 

 Arch Rocks Reservation,' the order for which was signed October 14, 1907. 

 A detailed report of the bird inhabitants of this reservation may be found in 

 Bird-Lore, Vol. VII, 1905, pp. 103-106. 



Mr. W. Leon Dawson, the President of the Washington State Audubon 

 Society, who is a careful as well as enthusiastic bird student, spent the summers 

 of 1906 and 1907 in a survey of the bird life on the islands and rocky islets off 

 the coast of Washington. These all lie close to the mainland, and are of no 

 agricultural or commercial value. They are, however, the homes of thousands 

 and thousands of sea-birds and a few small groups of sea-lions. On one island 

 alone Dr. Dawson estimated there were 40,000 Kaeding Petrels. This report 

 was the basis for three new bird and animal refuges, to be known as ' Copalis 

 Rock Reservation,' 'Quillayute Needles Reservation,' 'Flattery Rocks Reser- 

 vation,' the orders for which were signed October 23, 1907. 



The plan of bird and animal refuges is destined to be a great factor in the 

 future in the preservation of the wild life of the country. However good the laws 

 are and however well they way be enforced, killing will go on, and there should 

 therefore be refuges established in all parts of the country where shooting is abso- 

 lutely prohibited. It is astonishing how soon birds and animals learn to know 

 where they are undisturbed, and how Httle fear of man they display within such 

 bounds. The reservations we are securing are the beginning of the plan of refuges, 

 but the Federal Government owns no land in any of the thirteen original states, 

 nor does it own any in Texas. In these fourteen states, the proposed system of 

 refuges can be secured only by purchase, or by a legislative act. 



It is very much to the credit of the authorities in Pennsylvania that the game- 

 refuge plan has been adopted. The authorities of New York should adopt the 

 plan at once, and establish a large number of bird and game refuges in the Adi- 

 rondack and Catskill Parks. The setting aside of land for a refuge does not 



