be to start an artificial rookery of them where they could be thoroughly protected.  With this end in view I built a small pond, taking in a wet space that contained a few willows and other shrubs which grow in wet places.

In a large cage in this pond, I raised some snowy herons.  After keeping the birds in confinement for something over six months I turned them loose, hoping that they would come back the next season, as they were perfectly tame and were used to seeing people.  I was rewarded the next season by four of the birds returning, and nesting in the willows in the pond.  This was the start of a rookery that now covers 35 acres, and contains more than twenty thousand pairs of nesting birds, embracing not only the egrets but all the species of herons found in Louisiana, besides many other water birds.

With a view to carrying on the preservation of our birds on a larger scale, Mr. Chas. W. Ward and I have recently donated to the State of Louisiana 13,000 acres of what I consider to be the finest wild fowl feeding ground on the Louisiana coast, as it contains the only gravel beach for 50 miles, and all of the geese within that space come daily to this beach for gravel.  This territory also produces a great amount of natural food for geese and ducks.

SAVING THE GULLS AND TERNS.—­But for the vigorous and long-continued efforts of the Audubon Societies, I think our coasts would by this time have been swept clean of the gulls and terns that now adorn it.  Twenty years ago the milliners were determined to have them all.  The fight for them was long, and hotly contested, but the Audubon Societies won.  It was a great victory, and has yielded results of great value to the country at large.  And yet, it was only a small number of persons who furnished the money and made the fight which inured to the benefit of the millions of American people.  Hereafter, whenever you see an American gull or tern, remind yourself that it was saved to the nation by “the Audubon people.”

In times of grave emergency, such as fire, war and scarcity of food, the wild creatures forget their fear of man, and many times actually surrender themselves to his mercy and protection.  At such times, hard is the heart and low is the code of manly honor that does not respond in a manner becoming a superior species.

The most pathetic wild-animal situation ever seen in the United States on a large scale is that which for six winters in succession forced several thousand starving elk into the settlement of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in quest of food at the hands of their natural enemies.  The elk lost all fear, partly because they were not attacked, and they surrounded the log-enclosed haystacks, barns and houses, mutely begging for food.  Previous to the winter of 1911, thousands of weak calves and cows perished around the haystacks.  Mr. S.N.  Leek’s wonderful pictures tell a thrilling but very sad story.