Bird lore - Project Puffin

470
Bird -Lore
minute addresses on three days a week during the school year will be made by
members of this committee.
Our Club has done a great deal in the past to build up a strong public
sentiment in favor of bird-protection by publishing in the newspapers accounts
of its meetings, giving outlines of the addresses.
We have a bird-sanctuary of about 2,500 acres situated south of Hartford
on and near Cedar Mountain; and a member. Dr. Ansel G. Cook, secured for
us the free use of the 70 acres owned by the Children's Aid Society. The Club
has agreed to equip the sanctuary at its own expense with such bird-houses,
shelters, feeding-trays, bird-baths, fountains, etc., as may be necessary, such
equipment to remain the property of the Club; and furthermore to provide a
competent person to take charge of the property, who shall visit the sanctuary
regularly at least once a month. The agreement is for a period of ten years
and contains other items in regard to the rights of both parties. The agreement
made with thirty owners of other tracts of land in the sanctuary is not so
eleborate. Besides the clause in regard to cancellation of agreement it is as
follows: "I hereby grant to the Hartford Bird-Study Club, acting through its
Sanctuary Committee in conjunction with the Fish and Game Commission of
Connecticut, the right to post signs and use such means as may in their opinion
be necessary to attract and protect wild birds upon my land." Other members
of the Sanctuary Committee have been making bird-houses, so that more than
100 were made and mounted on gas-pipes last spring. Shrubs and trees have
been planted or transplanted to provide food and protection. The first con-
signment of Pheasants from the state game farm were liberated at the sanc-
tuary in August, 1916; other birds are to follow.
We thought last year we had issued the best 'yearbook' we possibly could,
but we think that this year's is ahead of that. It provides for nineteen field-
meetings aside from suggestions for Christmas and New Year's Day censuses.
Twenty regular meetings are planned for, at which papers are to be read and
field-notes given. Four illustrated lectures are also arranged for.
The Records Committee consists of the presidents, honorary, past, and
present, and all records are carefully examined before being placed in our
book, and unusual observations are carefully investigated before they are given
a place. Our composite list of birds has reached 213. Our yearly composite
list has passed the 180 mark.
Our field-meetings are so planned that at most of them some of the rare
birds may be seen, but the field-meeting held at Bristol on Saturday, October
14, 1916, was unusual in regard to breaking the records not only of Connec-
ticut, but of New York. On May 20, 1916, our Club took a census of the birds
in Hartford and vicinity, and positively identified 127 varieties.
MuNGER, President.
—
Edwin H.