Westboro,  Mass. ,  Jan.  23,  1928 
Dear  Doctor  Gilbert; 
I  am  heartily  in  favor  of  your  plan  of  making  bird  sanctua¬ 
ries  of  the  boys'  camps  of  the  country.  We  have  done  about  all  that 
can  be  done  by  legislation  for  the  protection  of  birds,  and  now  the 
bird  sanctuary  or  reservation  is  the  ultimate  measure  for  saving  the 
birds  that  are  left  to  us.  Tracts  where  trees,  plants,  birds  and  oth¬ 
er  wild  life  can  live  and  grow  as  in  the  wild  must  be  set  aside  for 
this  purpose  all  over  the  United  States.  It  is  a  great  idea  to  make 
sanctuaries  of  the  boys'  camps,  for  these  sanctuaries  will  be  an  ob¬ 
ject  lesson  to  the  campers,  and  will  interest  them  in  birds  and  their 
prot  ection. 
The  camp  is  a  far  better  place  to  teach  boys  about  birds 
than  the  school  could  ever  be.  I  know  this  for  I  once  had  charge  of 
a  camp  of  200  boys  in  which  I  gave  all  the  instruction  that  was  giv¬ 
en  about  birds,  and  I  have  also  taught  boys  indoors.  In  camp  they 
are  very  receptive  to  the  right  kind  of  instruction.  If  in  camp  they 
can  get  into  their  heads  the  sanctuary  idea  some  of  them  will  be  in¬ 
strumental  in  establishing  the  permanent  sanctuaries  of  the  future. 
All  this  will  be  good  for  the  birds,  but  I  advocate  the  plan  chiefly 
because  it  will  be  good  for  the  boys.  The  outdoor  study  of  birds  de¬ 
velops  the  observational  faculties,  and  we  all  know  how  important 
that  is  in  practical  affairs.  The  study  gives  the  boy  healthful  out¬ 
door  exercise  and  gives  him  a  new  and  wholesome  interest  in  outdoor 
life.  It  increases  his  capacity  for  innocent  and  rational  enjoyment. 
The  sanctuary  idea  inculcated  in  youth  will  tend  to  make  him  humane 
and  considerate  of  his  fellow  creatures. 
It  is  especially  fitting  that  such  sanctuaries  should  be  es¬ 
tablished  in  the  United  States  as  memorials  to  Louis  Agassiz  Fuertes 
the  greatest  painter  of  animal  life  produced  in  this  country.  Proba¬ 
bly  he  has  done  more  to  interest  young  people  in  birds  than  any  other 
American.  Nothing  except  the  birds  themselves  so  quickly  interests 
children  in  bird  life  as  a  colored  picture  of  beautiful  birds.  Fuertes 
has  produced  probably  more  such  pictures  than  any  other  bird  man  in 
our  history,  and  they  have  had  a  very  wide  circulation,  and  thanks  to 
your  happy  inspiration  this  movement  to  perpetuate  his  memory  origi¬ 
nates  in  the  very  State  department  that  published  his  last  illustra¬ 
tive  work  in  the  "Birds  of  Massachusetts  and  Other  New  England  States" 
and  the  first  camp  bird  sanctuary  is  to  be  established  in  Massachu¬ 
setts.  Let  the  good  work  go  on. 
Yours  cordially, 
(SIGNED)  EDWARD  HOWE  FORBUSH 
