PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION OF BIRDS 139 



and aids the states in stopping the traffic in birds across 

 their borders. 



While the laws are not all that is to be desired, they still 

 go a good way toward the protection of harmless and bene- 

 ficial birds. Of course there are time limits set for the 

 himting of game birds, and the export of game is prohibited. 

 Massachusetts, New York, and some other states have 

 milHnery clauses in their game laws, and make the sale or 

 possession, and even the wearing of the feathers of protected 

 birds a misdemeanor. No doubt through the enforcement 

 of these restrictive laws the millinery traffic in plumage 

 will diminish greatly. 



Audubon Societies 



In 1886 there was started by Dr. George Bird Grinnell, 

 editor of Forest and Stream, an organization for the protection 

 of birds other than game in the State of New York, which 

 soon had branches in almost every state in the Union. This 

 organization was called the Audubon Society, in honor of 

 that great naturalist and lover of the birds, John James 

 Audubon, who studied American birds in the first half of the 

 last century. The chief work of this society was to combat 

 the large trade in feathers for millinery purposes, and when 

 this trade declined, partly through the efforts of the society 

 and partly because of a change in the fashion in hat decora- 

 tion, the society died out. In 1896, however, on a revival 

 of the feather trade, new Audubon societies were formed in 

 different states, notably in Massachusetts. All the state 

 societies are bound together by a national committee. 



The aims of the present Audubon societies are, first, to 

 awaken public sentiment in favor of the birds by means of 



