344 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:8— Nov., 1920 



ficially compels us to go afield, but the attention we must thereby 

 give, reveals many remediable defects in our economy of natural 

 resources and natural beauty.* 



The Robin Junior Audubon Society 



Mary B. Birkicht 

 Longfellow School, St. Louis, Mo. 



One day in April, 19 10, four boys playing in the woods near their 

 home in a suburb of St. Louis, noticed a strange bird. Their 

 interest became so intense that they called at the writer's home in 

 the neighborhood and urged her to go and see the bird and if possi- 

 ble to tell them what it might be. From that moment those boys 

 became active bird students. 



They decided to form a club and succeeded in doing so in Septem- 

 ber in their school, the Longfellow. Three of these boys became 

 its officers. The members used as a basis for their study the infor- 

 mation given on small cards gotten from soda packages. This was 

 supplemented later by Audubon Leaflets and Library books. They 

 so aroused the interest of the pupils in the school that by the end 

 of the term, June, 1920, one hundred and ten members had been 

 enrolled. 



When the Bird Club of St. Louis made its annual trip in Decem- 

 ber to study the winter residents, the President and Secretary of 

 this society accompanied it. Their list was an excellent one for 

 amateur bird students, the president being thirteen years old, the 

 secretary, eleven. 



In the spring the club held a most pleasing exhibition of bird 

 houses. In many cases the parents assisted, but the boys mostly 

 did their own planning and building. One house, a pretty little 

 rustic affair covered with bark, so attracted the attention of a gen- 

 tleman when the owner was carrying it home, that he as given 

 three dollars for it. 



The whole club was wide awake. They studied books from the 

 library, cut clippings from papers and magazines, and hunted nests 



*Those interested in obtaining full information concerning the button indus- 

 try and the fully detailed natural history of the Naiades will do well to consult 

 the instructive publications of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, especially Doc. 

 865, "The Fresh Water Mussels and Mussel Industries of the United States," 

 by Dr. Robert E. Coker. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. 36, 191 7-1 8. 



