Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1912. 
VOL. LXXIX.—Nu. 15. 
12? Franklin St., New York. 
MALLARDS ALIGHTING. 
From a photograph by Edward Avery Mcllhenny. 
A Vast Wildfowl Refuge 
Mrs. Russell Sage Buys Marsh Island, La., for a Bird Refuge 
T HE sportsmen and naturalists of this coun¬ 
try owe to Mrs. Russell Sage a debt of 
gratitude they can never repay. She has 
purchased Marsh! Island in Louisiana, a de¬ 
tached tract containing 75,000 acres, which she 
will protect from gunners, and make a perma¬ 
nent refuge for wildfowl and other birds. 
The marsh lands of the States of Louisiana 
and Texas have always been the chief winter 
homes and feeding grounds of wildfowl and 
water birds in America. To these marsh lands 
gunners have resorted in great numbers and 
here millions of birds are killed each year— 
more, probably, than are killed in the whole 
Mississippi valley during the migrations of the 
birds North and South. 
The establishment of this great winte r 
refuge in this favored region, will protect a 
vast number of wildfowl during their stay in 
the South, and will permit them to return to 
their breeding grounds in the North, again to 
propagate their young. Some idea of the 
slaughter which takes place in Louisiana may 
be had from the figures given by the Game 
Commission of that State which declare that 
during the open season from Sept. 1 , 1910 , to 
the spring of 1911 , the enormous number of 
8 . 836,876 head of game were killed in Louis¬ 
iana. 
It was high time that such a refuge should 
be established. The marsh prairies of the 
Louisiana and Texas coast are now being drained 
and used for agricultural purposes and this 
operation is going on at a constantly increas¬ 
ing rate, so that such land is rapidly appreci¬ 
ating in value. By the draining of these 
marshes, the natural winter resorts of the wild¬ 
fowl and other birds are becoming constantly 
more contracted. As their feeding and resting 
grounds diminish in area, the birds that winter 
in the South must resort in greater numbers to 
the marshes still available for feeding purposes, 
and such congestion results in a constantly 
greater destruction by sportsmen and market 
hunters. 
The idea of setting aside large refuges for 
water birds in the marsh lands of Louisiana 
and Texas originated, we believe, with Edward 
A. Mcllhenny, president of the Mcllhenny 
Company, of Avery Island, Louisiana. A few 
years ago he interested Charles Willis Ward, 
