
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 



THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
PLAN TO SAVE THE DUCKS 
Audubon Society Would Make Bird Sanctuary of 
the proposed Gulf Coast Shooting Club 
UT of the storm of protest against the plan 
() of E. A. MclIlhenny and his associates to 
establish a gigantic hunting club in the 
midst of the Louisiana Wild Life Sanctuaries, 
there has evolved a definite and constructive prop- 
osition for saving the wild fowl of that region from 
the guns of the hunters and at the same time pro- 
tecting against loss those who invested in the Lou- 
isiana Gulf Coast Club. 
This plan is brought forward by T. Gilbert Pear- 
son, President of the National Association of Au- 
dubon Societies, who sees the possibilities for es- 
tablishing one vast, solid chain of sanctuaries in 
the great territory of the Louisiana Coast where 
wild fowl winter. He dreams of a bird reservation 
extending from Cote Blanche Bay westward to the 
Mermentau River, a territory about 80 miles in 
length and from 10 to 15 miles in width. 
“This plan concerning which I have been in cor- 
respondence with Mr. MclIlhenny for some weeks,” 
said Mr. Pearson today, “contemplates the pur- 
chase of the 100,000 acre tract on which the Club 
has option, and adding it to the adjoining wild life 
sanctuaries. 
“Tt was through Mr. Mcllhenny’s efforts origi- 
nally that Mrs. Russell Sage and the Rockefeller 
Foundation purchased as bird reservations great 
territories in that region,and Mr. MclIlhenny states 
that he was very anxious to place the remaining 
territory in sanctuary, but saw no means of get- 
ting the funds to do this. He declares that his 
present efforts to establish a hunting club in the 
region was his second choice and that he has been 
doing this in order that the wild fowl which came 
there so abundantly in winter might have a mea- 
sure of protection which private game preserves 
usually afford. 
“This being the case,” continued Mr. Pearson, 
“there appears to be no logical reason why he and 
his associates should not be willing to sell the ter- 
ritory for reservation purposes. I know of one 
gentleman who tentatively approached Mr. Mcll- 
henny on the subject some months ago and offered 
personally to be responsible for a sum of not less 
than $50,000 toward the purchase price. This 
party has recently indicated to me his willingness 
to ‘take off his coat and work for raising a fund to 
buy the land if it can be purchased at a reasonable 
price,’ and there are others interested.” 
Mr. Pearson who has personally examined much 
of the territory in this part of Louisiana, states: 
“T have reason to believe that a considerable por- 
tion of this proposed club property is at present 
unsuitable for ducks, but could doubtless be made 
a great haven for them by certain dredging and 
diking operations. On other parts of the territory 
wild fowl occur in myriads. 
“Here and there in the marsh are ridges where 
cattle are run and where the soil is cultivated. If 
the land should be purchased and presented to the 
state of Louisiana as a wild life reservation I think 
the state would be glad to accept it. Furthermore, 
it is possible that an income might be derived by 
grazing and farming privileges on the ridges that 
would be quite sufficient to pay the running ex- 
penses of guarding the territory. 
“If the people in this country can be made suf- 
ficiently interested to purchase this, and one other 
smaller tract of land, we will have a continuous 
wild fowl sanctuary of far greater extent than ex- 
ists anywhere on this continent. It is the natural 
winter home of vast numbers of those waterfowl 
~that annually swarm down the Mississippi Valley 
from Canada upon the approach of cold weather, 
“and a reservation of this extent would be one of 
the most valuable moves that could be made toward 
preserving in numbers many species of our perse- 
cuted wild water-fowl. 
FOOTPRINT STUDIES 
HE snow, declared Thoreau, is the great lev- 
eler. If you wander abroad the open roads 
and line fences, the brooks and frozen rivers, 
you will find the snow a daily register wherein 
each and every passer has printed his current 
biography and history. If you would learn some- 
thing not in books or mouths of men, step along 
the finely printed tracks of some animal and un- 
ravel the record of its nocturnal wanderings. Of 
all the trail makers, none have the variety and vol- 
ume of the fox. This prowler of the snows writes 
a complete natural history on every expedition 
from the home den. It is epic and dramatic with 
comedy playing side by side with tragedy, and the 
life of a night runs the gamut of the scale in prime- 
val fashion. The law of survival still dominates 
the life of the woodfolk and open country. 
A long, vigorous tramp across country is medici- 
nal in a physical way, and in a mental manner is a 
liberal education. Nature does not open her book 
of secrets for the speculative eyes of the world, 
but when snow covers the landscape with a white 
blanket she has to reveal many secrets that are a 
closed book at other times of the year. A summer 
friendship may lead one close to the haunt of 
these strange doings of her little people, but only 
a sincere intimacy ever reports the discovery of 
the hiding-places. In winter all is different. If 
you are wise to the wiles and habits of these haunt- 
ers of the silences, you follow the border thick- 
ets and wood paths, the line fences and streams. 
Tracks in the snow tell the story in graphic style. 
All life is on the move in search of prey and 
food or in endless journeyings that yield not their 
information as to the purpose. You look upon 
tracks strange and unknown, that have no begin- 
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