ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



T. Gilbert Pearson 

 President of the National Association of Audubon Societies 



Because of the recent appearance 

 ill Chicago of the newly elected 

 President of the National Associa- 

 tion of Audubon Societies. Mr. T. 

 Gilbert Pearson, to deliver the first 

 of the series of lectures in the an- 

 nual spring lecture course of the 

 Illinois Audubon Society, it is time- 

 ly and fitting that this number of 

 the Bulletin should present a sketch 

 of the life and activities of the man. 

 A vigorous speaker, an undaunted 

 leader in campaigns for legislation 

 and law enforcement. Mr. Pearson is 

 one of the most forceful personal- 

 ities the cause of bird protection in 

 America has enlisted. The signifi- 

 cance of his contribution to the cause 

 appears in records of state and 

 rational legislation and in the 

 awakened sense of the value of bird 

 life as a national asset. 



T. Gilbert Pearson was born in 

 Tuscola, Illinois, November 10, 

 1873. While he was yet a small boy his parents moved to Florida and he 

 grew up in the lake country of that State, where he was accustomed to as- 

 sociate with many plume hunters and alligator hunters that were rampant in 

 those days. Influenced by his surroundings one of his early ambitions was 

 to be an Egret plume hunter for the millinery trade in New York, but before 

 he acquired the skill in the handling of a gun his interest in birds took 

 another turn. 



At the age of thirteen, Mr. Pearson became an intense collector of 

 birds' eggs. Fortunately he started right and collected scientifically, keep- 

 ing records of each set of eggs taken, etc. Just before he was seventeen he 

 went to North Carolina to school and his collection of eggs was used to 

 pay his tuition in the beginning. He worked his way through school and 

 college and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1899, then 

 went to Harvard for a short course in science. For three and a halt years 

 Mr. Pearson was Professor of Biology in the State College for Women in 

 North Carolina and while there organized the State Audubon Society, and 

 in 1903 drafted a somewhat unusual game bill and induced the Legis- 

 lature to adopt it. This measure not only protected all the non- game birds 

 in the State, but provided a closed season on game birds, and prohibited 

 the shipment of game out of the State. The most unusual feature of the 

 bill was that it incorporated the State Audubon Society with the powers 

 of a state Game Commission. For seven years following Mr. Pearson 



T. GILBERT PEARSON 



