66 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



I distinctly recall the fact that when we appealed to the 

 Legislature for a five-year close season for quail through- 

 out New York State, Mr. Robert B. Lawrence said: "Non- 

 sense! There are plenty of quail." But it prevailed every- 

 where throughout the State save on Long Island. The old 

 guard of Long Island killers was strong enough to secure the 

 exemption of the dark-and-bloody ground, from Brooklyn 

 to Montauk. This was in 1914. 



As time went on the slaughter of the pitiful remnants 

 of Long Island quail merrily proceded. Men who regarded 

 themselves as good sportsmen and true game protectors 

 grieved in winter over the starving and freezing of quail 

 in sleet storms and deep snows, and blithely went out in 

 the fall to comb out the last survivors and shoot them up 

 for "sport." And not one of them even made one move 

 to arrest the annual slaughter and give the few surviving 

 quail a little rest and a chance to recuperate. The con- 

 firmed quail-killers said: 



"If we don't kill them the cold winters will!" 



And so the slaughter of THE REMNANT went on. 



Really, is not Man, at times, the most remarkable animal 

 on earth? 



But there were a few men on Long Island who were 

 differently constituted, and to whom the quail situation 

 was gall and wormwood. One was Mr. Archibald C. 

 Weeks, lawyer, and the other was Mr. G. Herbert Hen- 

 shaw, editor of "Brooklyn Life." For months Mr. Weeks 

 worked night and day to make an impression on the pub- 

 lic mind at Albany and elsewhere in behalf of the quail, 

 but without result. 



Then Mr. Henshaw approached the writer and asked him 

 to start something. Prof. Charles B. Davenport, of Cold 

 Spring Harbor, bitterly complained of the disgraceful con- 

 ditions. We said: 



