Bird lore - Project Puffin

4i8 Bird - Lore
Mrs. Alice Hall Walter and Professor Ehringer taught bird-study for six weeks at
the Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. We supplied public
lectures by the following well-known speakers: E. H. Forbush, Herbert K. Job, Henry
Oldys, Robert Cushman Murphy, and Howard H. Cleaves.
It is hardly necessary to point out that interest in bird-study was thus
stimulated in the minds of several thousands of school-teachers the past sum-
mer. As this work must be financed entirely by a special fund collected from
year to year for the purpose, we would urge that members who are interestec;!
in the educational feature of the Association's endeavor take under advisement
the matter of supporting an extension of the summer-school undertaking.
Virtually the entire expense of these courses heretofore has been borne by one
member, Miss Heloise Meyer.
LEGISLATION
Comparatively few states held sessions of the legislature in 1916, hence
we were not called upon for the usual amount of support in this direction.
Our Massachusetts agent, with the aid of others, was able to handle the
few matters that came up in the Massachusetts Legislature.
In Virginia, after many years of effort, a state game-warden force has been
established by law. As usual we contributed to the campaign-fund of our
friends in Virginia, and I may add that, as evidence of appreciation for our
legislative efforts in that state for a number of years past, the Governor very
kindly forwarded to our New York office the pen with which he signed the
game-warden bill, thus making it law. Mr. M. D. Hart, the President of the
Virginia Audubon Society, was very active in working for the passage of this
bill, and has been made supervisor of the game-warden force.
During the year the regulations governing the killing of birds under the
Federal Migratory Bird Law have been revised by the Biological Survey on a
very satisfactory basis. It should be recorded here that strong effort was made
by gunners and sportsmen's clubs in the Middle West to force into the regula-
tions a provision for permitting spring shooting of wild fowl, and but for the
efforts of E. H. Forbush, acting as President of the Massachusetts Audubon
Society, I have no doubt that the gunners would have gained their point.
He raised funds, instituted a campaign in the hostile territory, and aroused
public interest among the good people there who are really opposed to spring
shooting. Their protests, filed in Washington, saved the day.
During the year the treaty, which has been pending for some time between
the United States and Canada in reference to the protection of migratory
birds, was ratified by the United States Senate, after having been acted on
favorably by Canada. At the next session of Congress there will come up the
proposition of passing a bill known as an "enabling act." This is to give teeth
and force to the treaty. Should this bill not become a law the treaty will remain