Bird lore - Project Puffin

of Marco, an agent of the National Asso-
ciation ; but unless a more adequate fund can
be provided for this purpose. Mr. Williams
must leave it to the plume-hunters.
In this connection, I would like to
emphasize the necessity of having a com-
petent warden protect this last Egret-
colony of any importance on the southwest
coast of Florida. Before these birds were
molested by the millinery trade, they
nested on all the islands in the bay, and
in the mangrove bushes along the main-
land clear to the sawgrass; but since the
aigrette has been used extensively by the
millinery trade, this colony has been shot
out every year until 1913, when Sam
Williams was first employed by Charles
Willis Ward and the Audubon Society to
protect them. Williams succeeded in
bringing the birds through that season
with the loss of only seven, which were
killed by plume-hunters in a bold but
unsuccessful attack upon the rookery.
The next year, owing to lack of money,
the rookery was not protected, and vir-
tually all the birds were killed. The past
year about four hundred pairs, only a
fraction of the normal number for this
place, raised their young under the care
of Sam Williams—only to be slaughtered
The Audubon Societies 6S
in 1916, unless money can be found for
their protection.
To illustrate further the lawlessness of
this region, I am sending two photographs
taken in a devastated White Ibis rookery
at the head of a river draining from the
Everglades into the Ten Thousand Islands
just above Northwest Cape. This rookery
originally consisted of about ten thousand
pairs of White Ibis, but it has been shot
into by "sportsmen," and the birds that
were not killed have deserted the rookery.
These pictures show the empty and
deserted nests, and a few of the many
birds that had been left lying on the
ground where they fell.
That the concrete evidence of the mil-
liners' criminality, and the threatened
doom of the Egret, may be as forcibly
demonstrated in other cities as it was in
Tampa, the Tampa Audubon Society
herewith offers the loan of this exhibit to
any reader of Bird-Lore who will use
it for exhibition, pay for its transportation,
and return it safely to the Tampa Audubon
Society.
Requests for this exhibit should be
addressed to Dr. Herbert R. Mills, Presi-
dent of the Tampa Audubon Society,
Tampa, Florida.
THE GREAT McILHENNY PROJECT
On his baronial estate at Avery Island,
Louisiana, lives Edward A. Mcllhenny,
arctic explorer, big-game hunter, lecturer,
and of late years conservationist. Mr.
Mcllhenny is the man who manufactures
the well-known tabasco sauce and other
southern delicacies. Incidentally, he owns
one of the largest salt-mines in the country.
From the veranda of his residence one
may look out over a vast expanse of saltmarsh,
which extends away and away to
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is
his work in connection with the preserving
of the wild life of these marshes that of
late years has brought him prominently to
the attention of conservationists. Here is
an extended winter range for various
species of Ducks and Geese that come out
of the North upon the approach of cold
weather. Formerly large areas of this
region were the haunts of innumerable
market-hunters, who in autumn, winter,
and early spring, slaughtered the wild-
fowl in unbelievable numbers for the
markets of New Orleans and of many
cities in the Northern States.
In 19 10, Mr. Mcllhenny and Charles
Willis Ward bought, and set aside as a
reservation, 57,000 acres of these marshes.
They ran the market-hunters out, and
established guards to see that they stayed
out. They also secured an additional
tract of 13,000 acres, and on November 4,
1911, deeded this to the state of Louisiana
as a Wild-Life Refuge.
Marsh Island, containing 77,000 acres,