FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 4, 1906. 
I 72 
Louisiana Bird Islands. 
Some months ago we called attention to the 
leasing from the State of Louisiana by the 
Louisiana Audubon Society of a number of 
islands just off the coast of the State in the 
Gulf of Mexico. The transaction gives to the 
State of Louisiana lands which, by proper pro¬ 
tection. may become again—as they once were 
—sea fowl rookeries of enormous size and im¬ 
portance. 
Low sand dunes, grass-covered and rising but 
a few feet above the surface of the gulf, these 
islands are to the average eye dreary, barren 
wastes, utterly desolate; yet to them resort 
annually many thousands of birds-—or perhaps 
they should be counted rather by hundreds of 
thousands. 
But the setting aside of these great breeding 
grounds for the State of Louisiana goes further 
back than the leasing of these islands by the 
Audubon Society, and was brought about chiefly 
through the enthusiasm and energy of Mr. 
Frank M. Miller, the president of the Louisiana 
Audubon Society, to whose kindness we owe 
the illustrations shown here. 
It was in 1903 that Mr. Miller first visited 
these islands in the gulf, which are situated, 
roughly, about 100 miles south of Pass Chris¬ 
tian, Miss. In August, 1903, he started from 
that point in a sailboat, and spent his first night 
on Martin’s Island Key, the second on South¬ 
west Harbor Island and the third on Brenton 
Island. On his journey he saw the islands, saw 
the birds, heard many stories of bird slaughter 
and saw it going on. The cold-blooded, business¬ 
like destruction of these wild creatures aroused 
his indignation, and he promptly went to Wash¬ 
ington and consulted the authorities in the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, and from there to 
New York, where he talked with Mr. Dutcher, 
the president of the National Association of 
Audubon Societies. Air. Dutcher wrote to the 
President, who, interested as always in nature 
and in the protection of birds, at once set aside 
the Breton Islands—which belong to the Gov¬ 
ernment—as a preserve and breeding ground for 
the native birds. This reservation was put in 
charge of the Department of Agriculture, and 
the Secretary issued orders that people were 
not to shoot on the islands or their waters, not 
to collect eggs or shells therefrom, not to 
disturb the birds in any manner and not to land 
on the islands of the reservation without a per¬ 
mit from the Department of Agriculture. 
Later, through Mr. Miller’s effort, a chain 
of islands, owned by the Lake Borgne Levee 
Board, and extending along the coast, was 
leased for a period of ten years. There are 
seventeen of these islands with an area of about 
3,000 acres. Another island—Battledore Island 
—belonging to the State of Louisiana and con¬ 
taining about 1,000 acres has also been leased. 
The National Association of Audubon So¬ 
cieties has agreed to furnish two wardens with 
a naphtha launch to patrol the waters in which 
these various islands are situated, and protect 
the birds. A number of the islands are in¬ 
fested with raccoons, which, because there are 
no trees there, burrow in the sand. Efforts 
are to be made to exterminate these animals, 
and the privilege is to be granted to a number 
of expert professional trappers to take the 
raccoons in winter and to bring their numbers 
down to as near the point of extermination as 
may be. 
Each spring at the appointed time President 
Miller makes excursion to Breton Island for 
the purpose of witnessing there the immense 
flight of golden plover on their northward 
migration, and this is what he says about it 
in an interview printed in the New Orleans 
Picayune: “On the morning of April 28—or 
possibly the 29th, if a severe storm was en¬ 
countered—will land thousands and thousands 
of the golden plover. They stay for just one 
day, rest and feed and drink from the small 
pools of fresh water on the islands. They are 
the greatest travelers in the world. They will 
light on Breton Island by the thousands that 
morning—it is the same day every year; the 
birds never vary a single day, unless delayed by 
storms. From Breton Island they fly up the 
Mississippi Valley to Alaska, through British 
America, reaching their breeding places by June 
1. About Aug. 15 they pick up and fly to 
Labrador, where they feast and fatten on the 
curlew berry, until they are so stuffed they al¬ 
most burst. On Oct. 1 they launch out for an 
1,800-mile flight to the coast of South America, 
landing there exhausted and thin as rails from 
the long flight; then to Argentina, where four 
months are spent, although in the dead of sum¬ 
mer. Then they start for home in the far north¬ 
west arctic regions, flying up the western part 
of South America, through Central America to 
Honduras, then 700 miles across the gulf to 
Breton Island in one night. You will see the 
golden plover light on Breton Island next 
April by tens of thousands.” 
New York Zoological Society. 
The tenth annual report of the N. Y. Zoo¬ 
logical Society has been distributed to the mem¬ 
bers. Soon after the annual meeting at the be¬ 
ginning of the year, the substance of the re¬ 
port of the Executive Committee of the Board 
of Managers was printed in the Forest and 
Stream, but the present report contains many 
other details of interest. 
During the year 1905, the attendance at the 
park increased nearly 129,000, making the total 
attendance for the year over a million and a 
quarter. The collections continue to increase, 
and among the notable accessions of the' year 
were a West African elephant, the gift of Mr. 
Chas. T. Barney; a female eland from Mr. C. 
Ledyard Blair; a Tashkent wapiti from the Duke 
of Bedford; three Burmese Thameng deer from 
Mr. Wm. Rockefeller; five white Rocky Moun¬ 
tain goats, a Persian wild ass, a pair of Chap¬ 
man zebras, a tapir, a great ant eater, two 
capybaras, two clouded leopards, a wolverine 
and a grizzly bear. There were some births 
during the year of monkeys, lions, a tiger, 
wolves and some ungulates. An Altai wapiti 
was born, but did not live long. The total num¬ 
ber of mammals on hand at the end of 1905 was 
625. The health of the collection on the whole 
has been good. 
The bird collections have largely increased 
and are in conditions of very satisfactory vigor. 
The collection of pheasants presented by Mr. 
Jacob H. Schiff is large and interesting. The 
total number of bird specimens on hand is 1,555. 
The reptiles are also doing well, and number 
687. Among the interesting facts reported is 
the very rapid growth of some young alligators, 
hatched from eggs collected in South Carolina 
four years ago. From a length of 8 inches and a 
weight of 1 Yg, ounces, the reptiles have grown to 
a length of 5 feet and an average weight of 50 
pounds. There is here an opportunity for valu¬ 
able observation on the greater growth of the 
North American alligators. 
The Zoological Society continues to erect 
buildings, which are filled as soon as completed. 
1 he collections now on view are extraordinarily 
complete and interesting. 
Under the direction of Air. Chas. H. Towns¬ 
end. the aquarium continues to attract the 
public, averaging more than 4.700 visitors each 
day, or a total for the year of 1,726,170. New 
heating, ventilating and water supply systems 
are in process of installation, and when com¬ 
pleted will admit of the enlargement of the col¬ 
lections and their better display. The fish hatch¬ 
ing operations inaugurated a year or two ago 
by Air. Townsend continue, and the tanks for 
the aquarium now contain food and game fishes 
hatched in the building from artificially fertil¬ 
ized eggs, the specimens running from one to 
three years of age. The total output of the 
aquarium hatcheries deposited in State waters 
during the year is not far from 2,000,000. 
The aquarium’s laboratory and library have 
been placed at the disposal of investigators, and 
many persons have availed themselves of the 
privilege. Similarly the aquarium has furnished 
sea shore animals for aquaria for teachers, and 
is fulfilling well its mission as an educational 
institution. 
Among the interesting articles by persons 
connected with the collections is one on the 
Ungulates in the Zoological Park, by Director 
W. T. Hornaday; A Deadly, Fungus on the 
American Chestnut, by Id. W. Alerkel; Radio¬ 
graphs, by Director Chas. H. Townsend; Our 
Collection of Amphibians, by Curator Raymond 
L. Ditmars; The Swans, by C. Wm. Beebe; 
The Wichita Buffalo Range, by J. Alden Loring; 
The Idaho Moose, by Harlow Brooks, M.D., 
and Mountain Goat Hunting with a Camera, by 
Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn. 
As is always the case, the report is very 
beautifully illustrated. 
The Pinnated Grouse To-day. 
Among the North American birds that a little 
while ago seemed to be following the road which 
the great auk, the Labrador duck and the pas¬ 
senger pigeon have traveled, is one of the finest 
of our game birds-—the pinnated grouse, or 
prairie chicken. 
One hundred years ago its range extended, 
interruptedly perhaps, from the Atlantic coast 
to Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas on the 
north, and to western Texas on the southwest. 
The bird was abundant in Massachusetts, Con¬ 
necticut, Long Island, New Jersey and Penn¬ 
sylvania; probably also in Delaware, Maryland 
and Virginia. But throughout the whole of its 
eastern range, except for one little colony, it 
has long been exterminated. 
Giraud, writing about 1840, says that even 
then the bird was practically extinct on Long 
Island, but that it had been abundant thirty years 
before. Nuttall (1840) records it as found in 
Connecticut a few years before, though Linsley 
(1843) speaks of it as extinct. 
It is generally known that a few still exist 
on Alartha’s Vineyard, about which we shall 
have more to say further on. The species has 
been extinct for nearly forty years in New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania, and Mr. Witmer 
Stone, as recently quoted in Forest and 
Stream, says that up to 1868, and probably later, 
a few were said to occur on the barren plains 
which cover portions of Ocean and Burlington 
counties in New Jersey. This is a part of the 
pine barren region, an elevated dry tract covered 
with dwarf pines, which average not more than 
a foot and a half in height. Turnbull, in his 
“Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania,” states that in 
1869 a few survived in Monroe and Northampton 
counties, in that State. 
When the Middle West was settled, prairie 
chickens were extraordinarily abundant in por¬ 
tions of Ohio and in all of Indiana, Illinois, 
Kentucky and to the westward. Their range 
then extended probably about as far as it does 
at present. About 100 years ago Audubon spoke 
of their very great abundance in the barrens of 
Kentucky, where it may be assumed no prairie 
