Reports of Field Agents 275 
the office. This final culmination of the attempt to secure a State Ornitholo- 
gist in Connecticut is encouraging. Mr. Job has been appointed a member 
of the Faculty of the Connecticut State Agricultural College, and is doing 
public work by publishing a series of articles in the newspapers of Connecticut, 
which cannot fail to do much good in educating the people in regard to bird 
protection. 
REPORT OF WILLIAM L. FINLEY 
During the past spring and summer, as your agent, I made a study of 
bird-life in Arizona. Here I found a situation that parallels in its heartless- 
ness the slaughter of Herons in the nesting colony. There is absolutely no 
protection for Doves at any season of the year in Arizona. I found nesting 
about Tucson, the Mourning, White-winged, Inca and Mexican Ground Doves. 
In the early spring I saw hunters in the field shooting these different Doves. 
As summer advanced and more Doves arrived from the South, the number 
of hunters increased. In May and June, when the young were hatching and 
being fed, the shooting continued. Every day I saw hunters in the field. 
The Doves flock in toward evening from the desert regions to a few places 
where they can get water, and here they are regularly shot. One Sunday in 
June we counted seventeen hunters at a place called the Nine-mile Water-hole 
south of Tucson. A hunter often bags as high as fifty or sixty birds a day. 
This slaughter at the water holes is carried on, not only by boys and Mexi- 
cans, but by many men prominent in business life. One of these told me he 
did not realize the birds were nesting, and another man complained that Doves 
destroyed too much grain. I looked over a string of sixteen that a Mexican 
was carrying, and found several birds with bare breasts, showing they were 
either incubating eggs or feeding young. 
Without the enactment of laws and without educational work, we may 
soon have a Passenger Pigeon parallel in the Southwest. The Arizona Audubon 
Society, however, will make a strong attempt to secure protection for Doves 
at the next- session of the legislature. I should regard the accomplishment 
of such a step as one of the most important features of wild-bird protection 
in the Southwest. 
As an industry, the raising of different varieties of fruits along the Pacific 
coast is constantly growing in importance, and objection to certain birds 
continues to be heard. It is exceedingly important that we continue to make 
economic studies concerning the usefulness of wild birds to the farming com- 
munity. It is most important that a thorough campaign be waged among 
farmers and fruit-growers to show the economic value of birds. 
The Meadowlark, Red-winged Blackbird, and one or two others, have 
been doing some damage to crops in different parts of California. It seems more 
than likely that at the next legislative session another attempt will be made 
