Within thirty-six hours an entirely new fighting force had been organized and equipped for service.  Within one week, those reinforcements had made a profound impression on the defenses of the enemy, and in the end the great fight was won.  Of our small campaign fund it took away over one thousand dollars; but the victory was worth it.

With money enough,—­a reasonable sum,—­the birds of North America, and some of the small-mammal species also, can be saved.  The big game that is hunted and killed outside the game preserves, and outside of such places as New Brunswick and the Adirondacks, can not be saved—­until each species is given perpetual protection.  Colorado is saving a small remnant of her mountain sheep, but Montana and Wyoming are wasting theirs, because they allow killing, and the killers are ten times too numerous for the sheep.  They imagine that by permitting only the killing of rams they are saving the species; but that is an absolute fallacy, and soon it will have a fatal ending.

With an endowment fund of $2,000,000 (only double the price of the two old Velasquez paintings purchased recently by a gentleman of New York!) a very good remnant of the wild life of North America could be saved.

But who will give the fund, or even a quarter of it?

Thus far, the largest sums ever given in America for the cause of wild-life protection, so far as I know personally, have been the following: 

Albert Wilcox, to the National Association of Audubon Societies, $322,000
Mary Butcher Fund, to the National Association of Audubon
    Societies 12,000
Mrs. Russell Sage, for the purchase of Marsh Island 150,000
American Game Protective and Propagation Association, from
    the manufacturers of firearms and ammunition, annually 25,000
Charles Willis Ward and E.A.  McIlhenny, purchase of game
    preserve presented to Louisiana 39,000
Mrs. Russell Sage, miscellaneous gifts to the National Audubon
    Society 20,000
The American Bison Society for the Montana National Herd 10,526
New York Zoological Society, total about 20,000
John E. Thayer, purchase of game preserve 5,000
Caroline Phelps Stokes Bird Fund, N.Y.  Zoological Society 5,000
Boone and Crockett Fund for Preservation 5,000
A Friend in Rochester 2,500
Henry C. Frick 1,500
Samuel Thorne 1,250

Of all the above, the only endowment funds yielding an annual income are those of the National Association of Audubon Societies and the Caroline Phelps Stokes fund of $5,000 in the treasury of the Zoological Society.