6 
COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 
in charge are exercising every means at their command to successfully 
protect the birds. 
Panama Canal 
Zone a 
Bird-Reserve 
Before President Taft went out of office we took up 
with him the question of making the Panama Canal 
zone a bird-reserve. The request reached him, I 
believe, the day after election — and he took no action. But 
President Wilson made the canal zone a reserve when he came in. 
That is a very important sanctuary, as many of our birds go there in 
the winter. We have many bird-reserves which we are trying to 
protect that are not on government territory. These are cared for by 
agents employed by the National Association of Audubon Societies. 
The islands along the coast of Maine are great breeding places for 
sea-fowl of various kinds. There are forty-two islands where they 
nest, and we have sixteen men in service there in summer. We have 
wardens guarding islands along the coasts of Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, and North Carolina; also in Florida and Louisiana. 
About sixty important colonies of water-birds are protected by the 
Audubon Society in the southern states. We have not ownership 
of all these places. Some we have been able to buy and a few we 
lease. In other cases we obtained the consent of the owners to pro- 
tect them. The result is that certain water-birds on the Atlantic 
coast, such as the herring gull and several species of terns, have 
come back in great numbers. 
We are trying to guard the egrets in the south and 
we know of about ten thousand or twelve thousand 
of these birds left in the United States. Two of 
our agents, while on guard, have been shot and killed by plume- 
hunters, and the colonies have been raided and the plumes sent to 
New York. 
Protecting 
the Egret 
In North America the great nursery for wild ducks and geese 
is the region between the Great lakes and Hudson bay on the 
east and the Rocky mountains on the west. We have three 
great flights of ducks and geese in autumn from that section of 
the country. Those heading for the Atlantic seaboard chiefly cross 
the States diagonally, reaching the Atlantic coast about Maryland. 
In a reactionary migratory movement, many of them go back along 
the coast at least to Long island and swim back and forth, according 
to weather conditions. The other end of this movement goes down f 
the coast. There is also the great flight down the Mississippi valley. 
Under the migratory bird laws, the Mississippi, between Memphis 
and St. Paul, is a reservation. In the sunken ground of Arkansas > 
we have two large bird-reserves, and on one of these many ducks find 
