The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-17

How do we know they are helping the farmer? Proof can be had liter. ally by the volume. for the Biological Survey has 1t all in printed reports giving facts that have been proved ana proved again. There Is one man in that survey-and he Is one of many in the work--who has spent twenty years collecting proof for and against the nations feathered citizenry. With mi- croscope and minute implements he has examined one by one the stom- achs of many thousands of birds and with balance sheet kept for each, has determtned by indisputabIe evidence u u IT nss eaten things that were bene- have Injured the grain
 Witn the general exception of tho Ensush sparrow. the rice bird. and one cr TWO members of the hawk family tnM tireless floRlst has proved ali plyos Invaluable aids to the farmer. fte nas even removed the age-long
 s, ma rom the jay, the black bird. CUCKOO grosbeak and thrush. In the case or the red wing black bird he has snoWed that ST per cent of the food eaten was the seed of oxious weeds 1haL were Injurious to crops, while 13 per cent was divided between noxiouA insects and irm grain. The bob-o- ,Ihk the merry turncoat that Is
 
 the North. goes South to the rice fields snd does two million dollars worth of uaHage every year. Then hunters NH and ship him North again. Still
 s hardly fair to kill all other mem- pers or the bird .1mily because this ons Fellow has turned renegade.
 while not yet manifested in com. prenensive fashion. Is proving its worth. Within the past five years Inc Ffestdent has created, under the Gen eral Land Onice, Department of the Interior, twenty-three reservations for tne protection of native birds. Some gre on the Florida and Gulf Coast, some in the North Central States. inc others on the Pacific coast They. have been chosen with view to the fact that they are the breeding or feeding grounds of great numbers of fowls AS rule, each reservation is small. Is of land that cannot be used for az. ricultural or other industrial purposes. and will possibly never come within the province of the reclamation ser vice when 1t pushes further it's giant projects for the redemption of swamp lands Seven islands in the Gulf are Federal reservations. while eighteen more are reserved by the Louisiana Audubon Society under State authority.
 The Pelican Island reservation on the east coast of Florida was the first Government bird reservation created. This was set aside March fl, 1903. While 1t Is only a small mud flat is. land, 1t is the annual nesting colony of several thousand brown pelicans, The Breton Islands reservation, just shoye. the, mouths of the Mississippi, embraces several groups of islands, and Is one of the largest. containing several thousand acres. Other South hfFH ktnnR Eua and Indian Key in Tampa Bay. have sheltered gulls. terms and cormorants for ages. That bunch of mud heaps denoted as Tern Islands, at the mouths of the Mississippi. is the annual nest ing place of thousands of terms, brown pelieans and black skimmers; a bunch of oyster she'll keys further down the coast set aside year ago. shelters more pelicans, as does East Tambafier Island off the coast of Louisiana, where 4,5o0 laughing gulIs, grown pelicans, black swimmers, royal terms and her. ons nest. Mosquito Inlet, Tortusas Keys. Key West, Pine Island, MatIacha Pass and Palma Sola Reservations, all created this year. shelter uncounted thousands of wild sea and shore fowl Including gulls, terms. pelicans and blue, green and Louisiana herons.
 In the Northwest, the Stump Lake reservation of North Dakota protects the summer nesting sites of wild ducks, and the Huron anu Siskiwit Is- lands of Lake Superior and Chase Lake in North Dakota house thousands of herring and other gulls The first bird reserve on the Pacific Coast was cre- ated a year ago. This was the Three Arch Rocks reservation in Oregon. where thousands of California murres, brandts, comorants, petrels and puff fins come to breed. Shortly after the WA
 Copalis Rock reserves were set aside in the State of Washington for the same birds. and in, August of this year Lake Malhuer reservation--one of the worlds most famous breeding grounds for wild geese. ducks, swans, herrohs and other water and shore birds-wast created in Oregon. so. -s s~e
 The birds of these twenty-three re- serves are protected by q law enact- ed two years ago. providing that "it shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, trap. capture, wilfully disturb or kill any bird of any kind whatever or take the. eggs of such birds on any lands of the, United States which have been set apart or reserved as breed ing grounds for any birds by. any law, proclamation or executive order except under such rules and .reguIa- tions as may be prescribed from time to time by the Secretary of Agricul- ture"
 Those few thousand acres so set aside offer protection for 6 mere hand fui of birds, after all, when, compared with the great extent of unprotected areas over which the bird population moves at the mercy of the thousands of hutnsmen who kill for the markets, the thousands more who Kill for sport. and the thousands more who kill that feathers may be had for trimming wo- mems hats. Each wing. or breast on a woman's hat tells 6 silent tale of a life needlessly sacrificed but the egret Is mute witness to a. tragedy Not only was one bird sacrificed for that particular treasure but 1t was the mother bird killed when her brood was young in the nest depending on her for food and leaving them to per ish from cold or starvation. Said the late Charles Dudley Warner: "A dead bird does not help the appearance of an ugly woman and pretty woman needs no such adornment. It is against this evil that the Audubon So- cietv has waRed long war but the ef- feet is not yet telling for while thtr- ty-two States enacted the society's law. they do not all enforce it.
 4 complete bird survey would en- tail the most careful and minute work ever undertaken by the Government. Audubon Tn his studies tramped for years, going from Labrador to Texas. from Florida to the Yellowstone. Frank NJ. Chapman. ornithologist of the American Museum of Natural History, has just finished eight years work. traveling 60.000 miles in collect ing specimens and making studies of