218 
The measurements of length are from tip 
of nose to last caudal vertebra. 
It is a fact that Nos. 1 and 2 in the above 
list can and do swim voluntarily, but that 
fact is not generally known. ‘They cannot 
dive and swim under water as minks, musk- 
rats and otters do, but they have no hesi- 
tation about swimming across a pond. 
I once threw a line over No. 2 while 
fishing in a Louisiana bayou, hooked it in 
the back of the neck and landed it. It was 
summer and the wretched thing was loaded 
with wood-ticks and was very poor. I took 
the hook out of its skin, sat it in the water 
and saw it swim to the other side. 
What impels a man to capture an animal 
he does not want? I had no use for that 
hare in summer, yet the temptation to cast 
a hook over it was acted upon before rea- 
son asserted herself. My terrier has the 
same desire to kill things for which he has 
no use and therein he resembles the game 
hogs which RECREATION has been scalding 
in such a-vigorous manner. 
“More power to your elbow.” 

A PRIMA DONNA CONDEMNS BIRD MIL- 
LINERY. 
Mme. Lilli Lehmann was the attraction 
at the 2d annual meeting of the Audubon 
Society of the State of New York, which 
was held in April at the Museum of Nat- 
ural History. The purpose of this society 
is the protection of birds and the preven- 
tion of their slaughter for purposes of 
adornment, and Mme. Lehmann is one of 
its most enthusiastic members. An appeal 
which she had prepared, asking women 
not to wear birds’ feathers on their hats 
was handed to the members of the society 
as they entered the hall, and her address, 
read from the platform later, was enthu- 
siastically received by the 500 members, 
mostly women, present. 
Mr. Chapman, the chairman, read a let- 
ter from Governor Roosevelt, in which 
after declaring his sympathy with the 
aims of the society, he said: 
“Spring would not be spring without 
bird songs any more than it would be 
spring without buds and flowers, and I 
only wish that, beside protecting the 
songsters, the birds of the grove, the or- 
chard, the garden and the meadow, we 
could also protect the birds of the sea- 
shore and the wilderness. When the blue-: 
birds were so nearly destroyed by the se- 
vere winter a few years ago, the loss was 
like the loss of an old friend, or at least 
like the burning down of a familiar and 
dearly beloved house. How immensely 
it would add to our forests if only the 
great logcock were still found among 
them! When I hear of the destruction of 
a species I feel as if all the works of some 
great writer had perished; as if we had 

RECREATION. : 
lost all, instead of. only a part of Poly- 
bius or Livy.” 
Mr. Chapman then read Mme. Leh- 
mann’s paper on the destruction of birds, 
which she entitled, “A Plea for Human- 
ity,’ and in which she protested vigor- 
ously against the killing of birds for fem- 
inine adornment, the cruelty of vivisec- 
tion, the docking of horses’ tails, and 
urged women to stop wearing bird feath- 
ers on their hats and to wear flowers in- 
stead. Mme. Lehmann made i little 
speech after Mr. Chapman had finished, 
in which she extolled the purpose of the 
Audubon Society and said a similur so- 
ciety in Germany had 40,000 members. 
This was the result of the society’s an- 
nual election: 
President, Morris K. Jessur* Honorary 
Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Robert Abbe, Miss 
Maria RK. “Audubon; ) Mas, Samuel 42: 
Avery, Miss Eleanor Blodgett, Mrs. Wil- 
liam C. Doane, Mrs. David S. Egleston, 
Mrs. Morris K. Jessup, Mrs. Cadwalader 
Jones, Mrs, William M. Kingsland, Mrs. 
Francis P. Kinnicutt, Mrs. Seth Low, 
Mrs. Charles Russel Lowell, Mrs. Henry 
Fairfield Osborn, Mrs. James Roosevelt, 
Mrs. Joseph H. Rylance, Mrs. Frank IK. 
Sturgis, John Burroughs, John P. Haines, 
George Bird Grinnell, Henry G. Mar- 
quand, Rev. Henry C. Potter, Governor 
Roosevelt and Abbott H. Thayer; Sec- 
retary and Treasurer, Miss Emma H. 
Lockwood. 
Mme. Lehmann’s appeal, freely circu- 
lated, read: 
“T beg all women and girls not to wear 
birds or birds’ feathers on their hats any 
more. Every year 25,000,000 of useful 
birds are slaughtered by this terrible 
folly. The farmers are already suffering 
from it, and women enjoy wearing feath- 
ers like savages. Flowers and ribbons 
are a thousand times more beautiful and 
more becoming. It is the duty of every 
woman and man to battle against this 
grewsome folly. For years my hats have 
had no feathers. Lilli Lehmann.” 
The Audubon Society’s membership 
has now reached 16,000, with branches 
in I5 states. | 

DISAGREES WITH THE DOCTOR. 
In April RECREATION is a letter from A. 
Eberhart, M.D. The doctor is probably 
a naturalist. He says the testes of the 
Rodentia are abdominal and descend only 
during periods of rut. I am not a nat- 
uralist, so I turned to the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. It is there stated that the 
above rule applies only to the suborder 
Simplicidentata, and that in the other sub- 
order, Duplicidentata, the testes are exter- 
nal. The Doctor’s statement appears by 
_ the book too sweeping. The question at 

