president’s address. 
143 
heedless, indeed, who sees life go and come without thinking 
that there is a Being to whom we may be responsible, in some 
degree, for our attitude towards all that He has created. 
What has been said in regard to the four-footed tribes applies 
a p well to the birds ; more strongly to the birds than to the 
animals for, to a large extent, those beautiful productions of 
nature — a great many of them — are dependent upon us. They 
are visitants which, in their season, place themselves under our 
protection, and work for their daily bread about our homes, our 
gardens, our farms. The most beautiful birds are rarely in the 
deep woods or on the wild places ; but in the easy observation 
of almost all of us are 
The ballad singers and the Troubadours, 
The street musicians of the heavenly city. 
The demands of fashion have greatly endangered the lives of 
all kinds of birds. Our ornithologist, Mr. Leavitt, has frequently 
reminded us of this important fact. The evil in the United 
States had become so great that Audubon societies have been 
formed for the protection of wild birds and animals, and these 
are united in a national association, which- is to hold its annual 
session in New York this day week. A title of one paper to be 
discussed is “ The Trail of the Plume Hunter/’ and perhaps I 
need not do more than mention this fact in order to put plume 
wearers on their guard. The Audubon movement in the United 
States has become so influential that it has moved the national 
administration of that enlightened country to provide federal 
reservations of public lands in all the states in which the govern- 
ment owns lands, upon which reservations there is protection of 
the bird life, according to rules carefully made, and carried out 
under efficient inspection. In August last President Roosevelt, 
by proclamation, established three of these reservations, one of 
them in Florida which includes almost all the islands in the 
Key West region, one in California and one in Oregon, and these 
will considerably enlarge the scope of a most excellent work. 
That he has been given the power to make these reservations is 
ample evidence of the existence of a feeling that man has a duty 
