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 The Audubon Societies

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 Penn. 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. Peckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. Minnesota Mrs. J. P Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul. Tennessee Mrs. C. C. Conner, Ripley. Texas Miss Cecile Seixas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. California Mrs. George S. G. Redlands.

Now that the Audubon Society is recog- nized as a factor in the higher civiliza- tion of the day, it may be well to ask how far it realizes its responsibility as a public educator. " For the Protection of Birds," is a most reasonable and tangible declaration of motive, but what next ? The male and female public is straight- way asked to give up certain habits that it has regarded as inherent rights, — in the cause of humanity and agricultural economy, So far so good ; but should not these would-be teachers of good will to ani- mals, themselves be educated in consis- tent humanity, in order to keep their doctrines above the ridicule level ?

Upon the discrimination of its hu- manity depends the future of the Audu- bon Society. A discrimination that shall render its workings logical, and make it able to see that it must at least give as much as it takes. A breadth of knowF- edge to realize that if the Society restricts

the hat trimmings of women, the egg-col- lecting habits of boys, and the "just to see if I can hit it" proclivities of both boys and men, it is bound to give them something beside "the consciousness of rectitude" in return. The very least it can do is to help them to become as inti- mately acquainted with " the bird in the bush" as they were with the egg in the pocket and the feather on the hat.

It is here that the educational responsi- bility of the Audubon Society lies. In- stead of issuing tracts simply to decry feathar-wearing, and to say that some- thing should be done, I would have each Society send out one or more illustrated bird lectures to the remoter corners of its range, where people do not have the privilege of hearing professional orni- thologists Also to the groups of remote country schools whose scholars have no "key to the fields" that lie so close at hand. I would have the Societies send small circulating libraries of bird books in the same way. To introduce people to the bird in the bush is the way to create a public sentiment to keep it there, and to