Reports of Affiliated Organizations 8i 



We are especially glad to be able to report that, through the efforts of the 

 Club, Horace Taylor was again engaged to lecture to the children in the public 

 schools. We believe that this will now become a permanent feature of the 

 nature-study work, and the Superintendent of Schools states that an appro- 

 priation will be asked for next year to continue this good work. 



The Forestry Department of the town, whose activities are closely inter- 

 woven with those of the Bird Club, continues its very practical bird-welfare 

 work. Mr. Lacey, the Superintendent and Bird Warden, reports that his sixty 

 feeding-stations, scattered about the town, will be maintained again this com- 

 ing winter. Permanent, solid shelters are being set up at these stations, and 

 last year's results will justify the expenditure of pubHc money in this manner. 

 The several hundred nesting-boxes which were placed about the town have 

 been reset and many of them located to better advantage. The laws regarding 

 shooting within the town (now a reservation) are well observed, and public 

 sentiment leans strongly toward their enforcement. These all contribute to the 

 very healthy interest in birds and their protection that increases every year, 

 and we are more and more impressed by the real interest displayed by those 

 who are taking up the subject of ornithology as beginners, even among the 

 older people, and how true it is that those once actually interested seldom, if 

 ever, lose this interest. — Charles B. Floyd, President. 



Brush Hill (Mass.) Bird Club. — The most important move on the part 

 of the Club during the past year was to extend our active membership Hst 

 so as to include the entire township of Milton; up to last April only resi- 

 fents of the Brush Hill and Blue Hill sections of the town were eligible as 

 a ctive members. This has resulted in bringing in many new members from the 

 more densely settled parts of Milton and has made the Club a town affair, 

 rather than a sectional one. 



We had a talk last November by Mr. Floyd, President of the Brookline Bird 

 Club, on the organization of his Club and its activities, municipal or otherwise. 

 During the winter Messrs. Adams, Horton, and Walt F. McMahon, the latter 

 from the National Association of Audubon Societies, gave us illustrated lec- 

 tures on local topics. In April, when we made the change in the constitution, 

 we had Mr. Baynes give his popular illustrated lecture at the Town Hall. 



During the past two years we have prosecuted a vigorous campaign against 

 the English Sparrow, hiring an employee of the State Fish and Game Com- 

 mission to exterminate these birds wherever possible in our section of the town. 

 This was made possible by the cooperation of the Board of Selectmen, who 

 appointed him a special officer, with permission to shoot anywhere on the public 

 land of the town. We obtained written permits from most of the landowners 

 in our section. As a result, over i,6oo Sparrows were shot last year and over 

 600 the year before, when we instituted the plan and had but a short time to 

 act. This almost exterminates the local flocks, but the fact that their places 



