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BY THE WAYSIDE 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Published on the tenth of each month ex¬ 
cept July and August. 
The official organ of the Wisconsin Audu¬ 
bon Society. 
Filly cents per year Single copies 5 cents 
Contributions to By the Wayside are 
invited from all lovers of Nature and 
friends of the birds. All communications 
should be sent to Roland E .Kremers, 17 20 
Vilas St., Madison, Wis. 
Roland E. Kremers, Editor, 172 0 
Vilas St., Madison, Wis. 
Ur. Victor Kutchin, Secretary-Treas¬ 
urer, Green Lake, Wis. 
Owing to the increased cost of print¬ 
ing the subscription price of By the 
Wayside has been raised to fifty cents 
per year, with a special rate of forty 
cents to schools and libraries. 
The Editor of By the Wayside wishes 
to receive froip all observers all infor¬ 
mation obtainable on the distribution, 
numbers, and habits of the redheaded 
woodpeckers wintering in Wisconsin 
this year. Information regarding past 
years will be welcome also. If possi¬ 
ble, the results will be published later 
All data will be turned over to the De¬ 
partment of Zoology of the IT. W.. 
which has means of caring therefore. 
We congratulate the Department of 
Zoology of the University on its deci¬ 
sion to take up the work of studying 
the avifauna of our state. It is an 
undertaking in which it should have 
interested itself long ago, and doubt¬ 
less it would have done so had the 
members of the staff had time there- 
fore. It is to be hoped that success 
will attend their efforts. Blanks will 
be sent to all who care to observe on 
application to Mr. A. R. Calm, in care 
Zoology Dept., U AV. 
One of the stumbling blocks which 
those who urge legislation to protect 
birds frequently encounter is the argu¬ 
ment that other states do not always 
protect the birds whose range is not 
local. This may be epitomized as the 
what is the use ?' ’ argument. IIow 
this often works out is shown by the 
case of the Bobolink. To quote from 
Air. Forbush’s Firth. Ann. Rep.,—Air. 
J. H. Rice, Jr., chief game warden of 
South Carolina says: 
“The destructiveness of the bobolink 
to rice I do not question, but I deny 
the necessity of killing them, and as¬ 
sert of my own knowledge that the 
birds were never killed to prevent the 
destruction of rice, hut for market. Thus 
we see under what guise at the present 
time at lea'st the slaughter of the bob¬ 
olinks, and it is wholesale, is fostered. 
Rice growing in South Carolina is now 
a negligible industry because the rice- 
held negro is one of the most shiftless 
types of his race. He would rather 
shoot “reed birds” than work. The 
traffic in bobolinks must be stopped, 
lor the species is being sadly depleted 
in the eastern states. Indeed, the bob¬ 
olink industry is already following tin* 
rice industry because there are not 
enough bobolinks left to make it pay 
at a dollar for a dozen birds! It is 
about time that the facts become more 
widely known and all who can an* 
urged to read Air. Forbush's review 
in his Fifth Annual Report. 
