92 Bird Day Book 



It is impossible for me to state with sufficient emphasis the neces- 

 sity for immediate action and quick results in the saving of wild life. 

 The assaults that are being made on the forests of the United States 

 are in no way comparable with it. At one swoop the creation of 

 vast national forest reserves arrests the hands of the timber de- 

 stroyer ; but there are no such corresponding reserved areas for wild 

 life. Beside the vast extent of the reserved forests, the national 

 parks and game-preserves are lost in utter insignificance. 



Already a great amount of basic educational work for wild life 

 has been done. There are few intelligent persons to whom the sub- 

 ject is new. The public mind now is so sensitive to impressions 

 regarding wild life it is possible to secure, by a few months of effort, 

 results that even five years ago were wildly impossible. Our task 

 today is not the educating of the masses, but the arousing of the 

 conscientious citizen to the point of positive action. 



One determined man who is reasonably intelligent can promote 

 and direct a movement that will secure the enactment of a new law, 

 provided he is industrious and sufficiently determined. The man 

 who starts a movement must make up his mind to follow it up, direct 

 its fortunes, stay with it when the storms of criticism and opposi- 

 tion beat upon it, and never give up until it is signed by the Governor 

 or the President. A leader must be willing to sacrifice his personal 

 convenience, the most of his pleasures, and keep at his work when 

 his friends are asleep or at the theatre. 



The saving of the wild life and forests of the world is a duty 

 that by no means is confined to a small group of persons who work 

 for nothing and subsist on their own enthusiasm. The savings of 

 the fauna of a nation is a national task. It is literally everybody's 

 business. It rests upon the shoulders of the educated and the intelli- 

 gent, and the motives that prompt it are not found in the breasts of 

 the sordid and the ignorant. The educated people of the United 

 States and Canada now are called upon to protect their own from the 

 Goths and Vandals of the army of destruction who are strangers to 

 the higher sentiments. 



