Cl)e ^utiubon Societies " i'oK cannot 'with a scalpel find the poet's soul. Nor yet the wild bird's sonff." Edited by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright (President of tlie 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 SOCIEIIES 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. Henry S. 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 Jwenty-first street, Philadelphia. District of Columbia. Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. Wheeling, W. Va. (branch 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. Texas Miss Cecile Sei.xas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. California Mrs. George S. Gay, Redlands. A Bird Class for Children One of the most frequent questions asked by those seeking to win children to an appreciation of birds is, "How, when we have awakened the interest, can we keep it alive ? " The only way to accomplish this, to my thinking, is to take the children out-of- doors and introduce them to the ' bird in the bush,' to the bird as a citizen of a social world as real in all its duties and requirements as our own. There is a group of people with ultra theoretical tendencies, who insist upon con- sidering the bird merely as a feathered vertebrate that must not be in any way humanized, or taken from its perch in the evolutionary scheme, to be brought to the plane of our daily lives. In teaching children, I believe in striving to humanize the bird as far as is consistent with abso- lute truth, that the child may, through its own love of home, parents, and its various desires, be able to appreciate the corre- sponding traits in the bird. How can this best be done ? By reading to children ? That is one way ; and good, accurate, and interesting bird books are happily plenti- ful. But when the outdoor season comes, little heads grow tired of books, and any- thing that seems like a lesson is repugnant. Then comes the chance to form a bird class, or a bird party, if the word class seems too formidable. A dozen children are quite enough to be easily handled. The ages may range from six to twelve. Arrange to have them meet outdoors once a week, in the morning, during June and July. A pleasant garden or a vineclad piazza will do for a beginning ; it is inad- visable to tire children by taking them far afield until they have learned to iden- tify a few very common birds in their natural surroundings. Children who are familiar with even the very best pictures of birds must at first be puzzled by seeing the real bird at a dis- tance, and perhaps partly screened by foliage. The value of the outdoor bird class is, that to be successful it must teach rapid and accurate personal observa- tion. "Very true," you say, "but the birds
