Bird-Lore Part 13

=BIRDS AND THE COLD SPELL=

On the morning of February 5, 1916, there was received at the office of the National a.s.sociation the following telegram:

"The State Game Warden, Topeka, Kansas, reports his state covered with three to nine inches of sleet and ice. Birds starving by wholesale.

State organizing campaign for food. Can you a.s.sist? Immediate action necessary. E. W. NELSON, Acting Chief, Biological Survey."

We immediately telegraphed to the State Game Warden of Kansas offering $200 for the purchase of grain. Shortly afterward the following telegram was received from Honorable Carlos Avery, State Game Commissioner of Minnesota:

"Conditions critical for Quail on account of unprecedented depth of snow and extreme cold. Funds insufficient to care for them adequately. Can you include Minnesota for appropriation for this purpose?"

This second call for help, together with word received from other directions, indicated that the snow and ice-cap had extended generally over a number of the northern states of the Middle West. We at once wired to the officials of some of the organizations in several of these states, and also sent telegrams to thirty-five members of the a.s.sociation, telling them of the situation and asking for contributions to be used in the purchase and distribution of food for the birds. Many of the members immediately responded, and in a remarkably short time we had collected and telegraphed to the Cleveland Bird-Lovers' a.s.sociation $200, to the President of the South Dakota State College $200, and to the Minnesota Game Commission $600.

We also telegraphed the Postmaster General in Was.h.i.+ngton asking that rural mail-carriers in Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska be authorized to distribute grain to be supplied them for the purpose. The Third a.s.sistant Postmaster General at once gave the instructions requested.

Mrs. Elizabeth C. T. Miller, President of the Cleveland Bird-Lovers'

a.s.sociation, sent notices to all on her large members.h.i.+p list, called upon the people generally through the press, and set other movements in operation looking to the good of the birds.

The South Dakota State College is the largest educational inst.i.tution in the State, enrolling over eleven hundred members. President E. C.

Perisho, who is a lover of wild birds and, incidentally, one of the most influential and public-spirited educators of the West, called a ma.s.s meeting of his students and laid the situation before them. The following is from one of his letters, and will give some idea of what resulted.

"We are doing everything possible at this end to save the birds of South Dakota. I thought perhaps you would be interested to know that our organization for this purpose is as follows:

"1. The State College has written to four hundred or five hundred boys and girls, members of the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of the state, asking them to scatter grain and make some protection to save the Field Sparrows, Quails, and Prairie Chickens especially.

"2. The entire extension force of the College, including all the short-course demonstrators, district men, etc., have been written to and are cooperating with us.

"3. All the county agents of the state are interesting the school children of their counties, and a number of farmers and the rural mail carriers.

"4. The commercial clubs in all the large towns of the state, and the smaller ones where grain is most needed, have been written to, asking for their immediate cooperation.

"5. All the state inst.i.tutions, five besides our own, have been asked to help in this matter.

"6. A number of high schools and towns.h.i.+p schools, etc., have been asked to help.

"7. Between one and two hundred farmers, well distributed over the state have had personal letters.

"Money in small amounts has been promised to county agents, commercial clubs, etc. I met a number of the young men of our college today and talked to them about the situation, and asked for their cooperation in writing to their homes, etc. Those most interested in the work went out, after the meeting, and had a picture taken. I will send you this photograph as soon as it is developed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAVING THE QUAIL IN MINNESOTA

1. Locating nesting-places of Quails under brush and broken treetops. 2.

Placing grain under brush just occupied by a bunch of Quails. 3. Fifteen Quails were found here on February 13; food was left for them. 4. Some Quails become weak from lack of food, are easily caught, and sit contentedly in one's warm hand. 5. Several Quails near the foot of a tree, and one (at the right) running.]

In Minnesota, the "Save the Quail a.s.sociation" was immediately formed by the sportsmen of St. Paul and vicinity. Mr. Carlos Avery put the State Game Wardens to work, and the matter was given wide publicity. An immense work was done throughout the state in the way of feeding birds.

Mr. Avery has sent in a large number of photographs, showing the men actually at work for the relief of the birds. The method of feeding the Quails, to locate the covies, sc.r.a.pe the snow away, and put out food.

The heavy snow and extreme cold prevailed over a large area of the northern United States, and more work was probably done to feed the birds this winter than ever before under similar conditions. Many of the State Game Commissions have funds for this purpose, and have been very active.

Quails and Pheasants are known to have suffered much in Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton. A quaint little incident is reported of pheasants in Was.h.i.+ngton, sent us by a correspondent in British Columbia. He relates that the Pheasants during the time of deep snow not only came familiarly about barnyards, but were fond of perching on the backs of the hogs in order, apparently, to warm their chilled feet.

There have been some losses in New England, and even from New Jersey reports reached the office of the toll of bird-life that the heavy snow had taken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDENTS OF THE SOUTH DAKOTA STATE COLLEGE, AFTER LISTENING TO AN ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT E. C. PERISHO, ON THE NEED OF FEEDING BIRDS IN WINTER. NOTE THE DEPTH OF THE SNOW.]

=FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY=

When George Bird Grinnell coined the term "Audubon Society," and started the Audubon Movement, in 1886, one of the first to respond to the call and to go actively into the work was Miss Florence Merriam, who, with Miss f.a.n.n.y Hardy--now Mrs. Eckstorm, author of several bird-books--in March, 1886, organized the Smith College Audubon Society. Soon afterward Miss Merriam a.s.sumed the duties of a local Audubon secretarys.h.i.+p, in northern New York, and also secured local secretaries in several neighboring towns.

In 1897, when the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia was organized, she was one of its chartered members. For many years, as Mrs.

Florence Merriam Bailey, she has been an active member of its executive committee, and, among other duties, has had charge of the annual spring bird-cla.s.s, one of the most important features of that Society. That her interest in the work is deep, and sympathetic to an unusual degree may be shown by a quotation from a letter that she wrote to the California Audubon Society on the occasion of its organization:

"Wherever you go, study the birds and tell your friends of them. Point out to them the chaste beauty of your exquisitely tinted waterfowl; let them see the glowing splendor of your Tanagers, the flas.h.i.+ng jewels of your Hummingbirds. Take them to the fields, that they may listen in rapture to the rare voice of your Meadowlark; take them to the deep canyons filled with the flute-like notes of the Canyon Wren; and to the fir forests on the mountainsides, where their souls will be stirred by the uplifted song of the Thrush.

"By knowing the birds personally, you will bring to your Audubon work the enkindling spark of enthusiastic friends.h.i.+p. In all phases of your work, for yourselves, your friends, your birds, and your children, you have my hearty interest and good wishes. For fifteen years I have been waiting for you to take up the cause of the California birds, and for many years I have been working with the children of the West on my heart. Knowing this, you may well believe that I wish your beautiful work an earnest G.o.d-speed."

Mrs. Bailey's natural girlhood's interest in wild birds was greatly quickened by dwelling in a home in which scholars.h.i.+p and a love of scientific accuracy were taught daily; and she had the added advantage of living in a region of northern New York well supplied with bird-life.

In a recent letter she wrote: "Having been brought up on Coues's 'Key,'

and trained by my brother, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, on leaving College in 1886 I began doing careful field-work." Since that day, no woman has studied the wild birds of America so systematically, so thoroughly, and so carefully as she. The amount of field-work she has done is perfectly astonis.h.i.+ng, and probably few women have spent so many days in the wilds, or so many nights under canvas, as has Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey. Her work, partly conducted in company with her brother, Dr.

Merriam, and her husband, Mr. Vernon Bailey, has been carried on not only in eastern and southern states and in the Bermudas, but also in Arizona, Oregon, California, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and New Mexico.

As a teacher of others, she has given bird-talks and conducted field-cla.s.ses in bird-study in various parts of the country, and for thirty years her name has been before the public as a writer of popular and scientific articles. The t.i.tles of no less than seventy communications published in _The Auk_, _Bird-Lore_, _The Condor_, _Forest and Stream_, _The Outlook_, _Popular Science_, _The American Agriculturist_, and elsewhere, have come to my attention. Her first book, "Birds Through An Opera Gla.s.s," was published in 1889. This was followed by "My Summer in a Mormon Village," 1895; "A-Birding on a Bronco," 1896; and "Birds of Village and Field," 1898.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY]

Her largest and most valuable contribution to the literature of ornithology is her "Handbook of Birds of the Western United States,"

first published in 1902. From the day of its appearance, this was hailed as the most practical and useful book on our western birds that had ever been published, and for many years to come it will be regarded as the standard work on the subject. No serious student of bird-life in the western United States would think of being without this valuable book on his study-table.