Cl)e ^uDubon Societies

" }'oii cannot with a scalpel find the poet's soul, Nor yet the wild bird's sofig." Edited by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright (President of the Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut), Fairfield, Conn., to whom all communications relating to the work of the Audubon and other Bird Protective Societies should be addressed. DIRECTORY OF STATE AUDUBON SOCIETIES With names and addresses of their Secretaries. New Hampshire Mrs. F. W. Batchelder, Manchester. Massachusetts Miss Harriet E. Richards, care Boston Society of Natural History, Boston. Rhode Island Mrs. H. T. Grant, Jr., 187 Bowen street. Providence. Connecticut Mrs. William Brown Glover, Fairfield. New York Miss Emma H. Lockwood, 243 West Seventy-fifth street, New York City. New Jersey Miss Anna Haviland, 53 Sandford Ave., Plainfield, N. J. Pennsylvania Mrs. Edward Robins, 114 South Twenty-first street, Philadelphia. District of Columbia Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. Wheeling, W. Va. (blanch of Peiin. Society).. Elizabeth I. Cummins, 1314 Chapline street, Wheeling. Ohio Miss Clara Russell, 903 Paradrome street, Cincinnati. Indiana Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. Illinois Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. Iowa ■ Miss Nellie S. Board, Keokuk. ■Wisconsin Mrs. George W. Prckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. Minnesota Mrs. J. P Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul. Tennessee Mrs. C. C. Conner, Ripley. Texas Miss Cecile Sei.xas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. California Mrs. George S. G. Redlands. The Responsibility of the Audubon the hat trimmings of women, the egg-col- Society lecting habits of boys, and the "just to Now that the Audubon Society is recog- see if I can hit it" proclivities of both nized as a factor in the higher civiliza- boys and men, it is bound to give them tion of the day, it may be well to ask how something beside "the consciousness of far it realizes its responsibility as a public rectitude" in return. The very least it educator. can do is to help them to become as inti- " For the Protection of Birds," is a mately acquainted with " the bird in the most reasonable and tangible declaration bush" as they were with the egg in the of motive, but what next ? pocket and the feather on the hat. The male and female public is straight- It is here that the educational responsi- way asked to give up certain habits that bility of the Audubon Society lies. In- it has regarded as inherent rights, — in stead of issuing tracts simply to decry the cause of humanity and agricultural feathar-wearing, and to say that some- economy, thing should be done, I would have each So far so good ; but should not these Society send out one or more illustrated would-be teachers of good will to ani- bird lectures to the remoter corners of mals, themselves be educated in consis- its range, where people do not have tent humanity, in order to keep their the privilege of hearing professional orni- doctrines above the ridicule level ? thologists Also to the groups of remote Upon the discrimination of its hu- country schools whose scholars have no manity depends the future of the Audu- "key to the fields" that lie so close at bon Society. A discrimination that shall hand. I would have the Societies send render its workings logical, and make it small circulating libraries of bird books in able to see that it must at least give as the same way. To introduce people to the much as it takes. A breadth of knowF- bird in the bush is the way to create a edge to realize that if the Society restricts public sentiment to keep it there, and to (136)