A R E V I E W. 



THE Audubon Society was founded by 

 the Forest and Stream in February, 

 1886, with the object of saving the birds of 

 this continent, and especially song and other 

 small birds, from being practically exter- 

 minated. Those who thought about the 

 matter saw that the birds were rapidly 

 growing fewer. Many of the farmers no- 

 ticed that there were not so many birds as 

 there used to be. As a rule they did not 

 trouble themselves much about it; they had 

 too many other things to think of. But 

 sometimes, when their orchards were at- 

 tacked by insects, and every apple had a 

 worm at its core, or when their crops, one 

 after the other, were damaged by various 

 insects, they recollected that birds eat in- 

 sects by the thousand, and could not help 

 wondering how it would fare with the har- 

 A'ests if there were no birds left to keep the 

 insects in check. 



There were other people besides farmers 

 who lived in the country, or visited it in the 

 summer months, because they liked to get 

 away from the noise, and heat, and dust of 

 the great cities, and spend weeks or months 

 in the woods and fields, and listen to the 

 glad music of the song-birds. These were 

 the first to notice the disappearance of the 

 birds, and to feel the loss deeply. Then 

 there were scientific men, like the members 

 of the American Ornithologists' Union, who 

 make a study of birds and their habits — of 

 the food they eat, and of the share of world's 

 work which falls upon their shoulders, and 

 who knew that a country could not be de- 

 prived of its birds without inflicting very 

 severe trouble upon the people. In fact, it 

 was they, and such as they, who first opened 

 the farmer's eyes to the value of- the services 

 which the birds render him, by feeding on 

 insects, and thus saving his whole crop from 

 destruction. 



When it was noticed that the birds were 



not as plenty as they used to be, there was 

 not much difficulty in accounting for it. 

 In the year 1786 there were less than five 

 millions of people in the United States, and 

 the ladies wore no feathers — at least noth- 

 ing but ostrich or marabout feathers — but 

 in the year 1886 there were fifty-five mil- 

 lions of people in the country — nearly all 

 the ladies wore bird skins or heads or wings; 

 many men went shooting small birds to 

 make money by selling the skins, and in- 

 numerable boys went bird nesting. Of 

 course there were exceptions — there were 

 gentle women who were deeply pained at 

 the sight of so many bright lives being 

 thoughtlessly sacrificed; there were men, 

 too, indignant at the wanton destruction of 

 life. But what could one person, or a score 

 of persons do to influence the conduct of a 

 whole people ? How could one person ap- 

 peal to fifty-five millions of people, and ask 

 them even to consider the matter .? 



Of course the thing was possible, and what 

 is more, it is i J. a fair way of being achieved. 

 There is hardly a State or Territory in the 

 Union, in which there is not now a large, 

 number of people pledged to protect the 

 birds; and there is every reason to believe 

 that before many years shall have passed, 

 a person who has not heard of the move- 

 ment will be a rare exception. 



The idea of founding the Audubon Soci- 

 ety originated with Dr. George Bird Grinnell 

 of the Forest and Stream Publishing Com- 

 pany, of New York. As a member of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union, he had 

 acquainted himself with all the facts bear- 

 ing upon the destruction of birds and their 

 rapid disappearance, and had given much 

 study to the subject in all its aspects. The 

 Union, while it laid stress upon the import- 

 ance of public agitation for the preservation 

 of our birds, declared plainly that it would 

 not head such a movement. As experts, its 



