THE AUDUBON NOTE BOOK 



MEMBERSHIP RETURNS. 



The registered membership of the Society on 

 April 30, iSSS, was 45,651, showing an increase 

 of 497 members during the month, drawn from the 

 following sources: 



New York 12^ Illinois 16 



Massachusetts 55 Iowa 7 



Pennsylvania 103 Minnesota i 



New Jersey 10 Missouri 2 



Vermont 6 Mississippi 4 



New Hampshire 13 Kentucky i 



Connecticut 41 Texas 19 



Rhode Island i North Carolina 7 



Maine 16 Florida. 6 



Indiana i West Virginia 30 



Ohio IS Canada 9 



Michigan 5 — 



497 

 C. F. Ameky, General Secretary. 



WARREN'S LEDGER. 



The single sheet circular bearing this title, and 

 described by its publisher as " a periodical devoted 

 to natural history," is an e.\traordinary evidence of 

 the perversity of moral nature which will sometimes 

 prompt seemingly shrewd people to make unheard 

 of sacrifices to earn a little money dishonestly, when 

 it would be much more easy to earn it honestly. 



The Ledger publishes a list of birds which it pro- 

 fesses to want at prices ranging from one to ten 

 cents per skin. By offering five or si.x dollars for 

 rare birds and as much as twenty-five dollars for a 

 pied duck it seeks to impress country boys with the 

 idea that they can make a great deal of money by 

 procuring skins for the enterprising Ledger proprie- 

 tor. Indeed he assures them that every bird in their 

 vicinity has a market value, and that they can make 

 a very good living shooting for him. 



But Mr. Warren of the Ledger evidently does not 

 want bird skins, he lays it down distinctly that he 

 will not buy them from any one who is not a regular 

 subscriber to his circular, which he has the impu- 

 dence to demand fifty cents a year for, coupled with 

 the further condition that his preserving cotton must 

 be used for stufling the birds. This, too, costs fifty 

 cents a package, weight not specified. What Mr. 

 Warren wants is to sell his circulars and cotton. 



But the character of the circular is best indicated 

 by the fact that it offers from one to ten cents a skin 

 for a long list of birds protected by kw. It is thus 

 technically an incentive to the commission of an 

 offense, but hardly a very strong one. There are 

 possibly boys, and men too, who would kill warblers 

 and finches in defiance of the law, and perhaps skin 

 and stuff them for a cent apiece, but Mr. Warren 



must be possessed of an unusual amount of persua- 

 sive eloquence if he can induce this or any class of 

 persons to subscribe fifty cents for his Ledger. 



The poor birds have many enemies, but Warren's 

 Ledger is not likely to prove so formidable a one as 

 some of our friends have supposed. 



CROW AND ANTI-CROW. 



One of the greatest crows' roosts ever known in 

 northern New Jersey has been formed in a piece of 

 woods near Deckertown, Sussex county. Many 

 thousands of the birds occupy the trees, and their 

 cries in the morning when leaving on their foraging 

 expeditions, and on returning to the roost at night, 

 can be heard for two miles. The farmers living in 

 the vicinity, who believe that the crow is a destruc- 

 tive enemy of theirs, take advantage of their pres- 

 ence in such great numbers to wage a war of exter- 

 mination on them, and make raids upon the roost 

 nightly, shooting and clubbing hundreds of crows to 

 death. The hunters carry torches, and the startled 

 birds fly about bewildered, uttering deafening cries 

 of terror which, added to the banging of the guns 

 and the shouts of the hunters, make a regular 

 pandemonium of the woods at night. These raids 

 are hotly opposed by some of the farmers of the 

 vicinity, who believe the crow is a friend instead of 

 an enemy to the farmer; but the anti-crow party is 

 the largest, and at last accounts this slaughter of the 

 crows was going on nightly, and will be continued 

 until the roost is broken up. — Exchange. 



NO MORE BIRDS IN BONNETS. 



Ladies are no longer to wear birds in their bon- 

 nets and hats. Thus it has been decreed by fashion. 

 The benevolent edict comes just in time to save the 

 last remaining members of the race of humming 

 birds and birds of paradise. The great forests of 

 India, Brazil, and the banks of the Mississippi have 

 been ransacked and have yielded up their treasures 

 of winged jewelry to adorn the feminine headgear. 

 Now at last there is to be a truce to the massacre, 

 and the pretty denizens of the woods may sing and 

 fly awhile in peace. To estimate the extent of 

 slaughter perpetrated for the sake of womankind's 

 adornment we may take the statement of a London 

 dealer, who admits that last year he sold 2,000,000 

 small birds of every possible kind and color, from 

 the soft gray of the wood pigeon to the gem-like 

 splendor of the tropical bird. Even the friendly 

 robin has been immolated to adorn the fashionable 

 bonnet. — London Qttcen. 



