2 TH BoA UPD: B OWNS Ue la 
tion in its various aspects, support of the formation of wild-life sanctua- 
ries, and opposition to all efforts to infringe in any way upon the state 
and national parks. 
Mrs. Henry W. King as president and Miss Emily S. Rumsey as sec- 
retary-treasurer took the reins of the new Society and at the first annual 
meeting in 1898, reported a membership of 580 adults and 2800 juniors. 
To “disseminate literature’ was very early taken to include illustrated 
public lectures sponsored by the Society, the first being written by Mr. 
Clark, illustrated with slides furnished by Mr. Dugmore, and delivered by 
Mrs. Farwell in 1902. Mr. Henry Oldys was engaged for a series of lec- 
tures through the state in the fall of 1913, and on a four-week’s tour spoke 
in 64 towns to over 100 audiences and 30,000 people! In the spring of 1914 
he made another tour on which he spoke before 57 audiences of 13,000 
people in 32 towns. Moving pictures were beginning to gain popularity, 
and in 1917, Mr. Orpheus M. Schantz found a way to reach a movie 
audience in Sheffield when he persuaded the theater owner to sandwich an 
hour’s bird talk between two of his reels. Recently for several years the 
Society has been cooperating with the National Audubon Society by using 
its Screen Tours for an annual program. 
The Society was active in 1912-13 in support of federal action on a 
migratory bird law that was passed in the last days of the congressional 
session and signed by President Taft only a few hours before his retire- 
ment. A bill: prohibiting the importation and sale of wild bird feathers 
was up at about the same time, and in 1916 it was announced that all 
feathers of wild birds had been withdrawn from sale by Chicago stores. 
The first “Comprehensive Check List of the Birds of Illinois,” one of 
the many contributions to the Society by Benjamin T. Gault, for many 
years an active member of the board of directors, was issued in 1922, and 
a revision of this valuable work is now being prepared. 
Spring outings were a regular activity of the Society for many years, 
beginning in 1924 with a day spent along the Des Plaines River south of 
Riverside. In 1940 the first of several meetings in cities other than those 
immediately around Chicago, was held at Havana, Illinois, with the co- 
operation of the Illinois Natural History Survey. Other sessions were held 
at Quincy, Savanna, Springfield and Urbana. Gasoline rationing in the 
war years interfered with that program, but its resumption is now under 
consideration. Bird walks in Lincoln Park, Chicago, have been conducted 
every spring since 1940 under the leadership of Miss Doris Plapp, and 
this past spring, in a few other parks with other leaders. 
Meetings of the Society were held in various places until the secretary’s 
report in 1912 noted that “part of our, work has been carried on at the 
Chicago Academy of Sciences for several years — and our headquarters 
will hereafter be in that building.” A change in the by-laws of the Aca- 
demy was made permitting a somewhat closer association and in 1930 a 
formal affiliation with it as the “Section of Popular Ornithology” was ac- 
complished. From that time all lectures and other public meetings were 
held there until the removal of the Society to the Chicago Natural History 
Museum in the early part of 1949. 
