Public sentiment and legal control had been steadily improving and were stimulated by the sudden perception, about 1875, that the bison, the wild pigeon, the prairie chicken and other well-known animals would soon become ex tinct unless rescued. At this time, too, sprang up the world-wide fashion of using stuffed birds, and their wings and feathers, in millinery. Ruthless slaughter of egrets, hummingbirds and every sort of song-bird as well as larger kinds began; and in 1885 the Audubon Society was organized to try to stem the tide of de struction and bring to the minds of women a knowledge of the economic as well as moral wrong involved in the fashion that was sacri ficing bird-life all over the world. Out of this movement grew the National Association of Audubon Societies (q.v.), which has been the most powerful factor in bringing all the birds of the country under the protection of laws. Finally, it was largely co-operation with the United States Biological Survey and several sportsmen's organizations, in arranging a treaty with Canada covering the safety of migratory birds equally in both countries. This treaty, the way for which was paved by the United States Federal law of 1913, protecting all migratory birds, regardless of State lines, was finally ratified in 1916— abolishing in this respect international lines by the Congress of the United States and by the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, both of which bodies arranged for its enforce ment. The conservation of American bird-life may now be said, therefore, to be in a satis factory condition.
Meanwhile, under the sympathetic encourage ment of President Roosevelt, continued b successors, certain areas have been set apart from the public domain — in most cases tracts virtually useless for agriculture or grazing as °Reservations' wherein the destruction of all living and harmless creatures is prohibited. This policy began with the seclusion of the animals of the Yellowstone, Glacier. Mount Olympus and other national parks. But the mountainous and forested places were not suited to the larger plains-animals, for which special reservations were soon prepared. This policy began with the Wichita 'National Game Preserve in southeastern Oklahoma, covering 57,120 acres. It contains a fenced bison-ranke of 9,760 acres, which in 1908 was stocked with a kind of bisons by the Ncw York Zoological Society; this band has since increased to nearly 100, and many antelopes and deer have been set free in similar great enclosures. Another bison-range was established in northern Mon tana and stocked in 1910 by the Bison Society. and a large herd is now in existence there. Minnesota has a great deer-preserve in a region of forest, ponds and rocks adjacent to the Canadian line; and a similar refuge for deer exists under State guardianship in the Adirondacks. Greater in extent than all these combined is the grand Canyon National Game Preserve. which embraces the whole region through which the Grand Canyon of the Uio Colorado has been carved. Its area is 2,333
square miles of mountains, plateaus and can ons inhabited by animals that arc adapted to the local conditions and could hardly be pre served elsewhere.
For birds about 70 areas have been reserved, including many breeding resorts of sea-birds n the coasts of the Pacific States, British Columbia and Alaska, heretofore raided by egg hunters; large areas of marshes and lakes in the Pacific States and in the interior necessary as breeding- and feeding-places for western wildfowl and secure refuges for them on their migrations; and many heronries and resorts of shore-birds and ducks in Florida and else where along the Gulf Coast. Similar reserva tions have been created in Canada and in the insular possessions of the United States. Be sides this several of the States, and Provinces have established reserves for animals — notably New York. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Louisiana and the northern Rocky Mountain States; and in Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta_ The Canal Zone is as a whole a bird reservation ; this is the only American one not controlled by the Department of Agriculture and administered by the Biological Survey. It must rot be forgotten, also, that the conscientious enterprise of out-door societies of various kinds and of individual citizens have made many private game-preserves and bird-sanctuaries, and in so doing have not only provided local refuges, but have interested and educated the people of the neighborhood. The education of the you and the general interest now felt in animal life in a scientific as well as a humane was is really the greatest safeguard wild life bias.
In addition to the federal supervision now xercised in both the United States and Canada to prevent the waste of wild life while enjoy ing its proper utilization, every State and province has a board of commissioners charged with the same duty, and with the execution of ihe game laws. These public officials are both aided and criticized by several vigorous or ganizations, the most powerful of which are The American Game Protective and Propaga tion Association, The Wild Life Protective As •..elation. The New York Zoological Society, I he National Association of Audubon Societies, '1 he camp Fire Club of America and The }:.,,ne and Crockett Club. To this list might well he added the names of a large number of lesser organizations exerting a most useful sigilance and influence locally. Consult the publications of the United States Department of Agriculture, especially those of the Biologi cal Survey and of the Canadian Conservation Cpaaisaion; also the annual reports of the State game and fish commissions and of the societies listed above. The best guide to fur ther study, and summary of results up to the beginning of the Great War, is to be found in William T. Hornaday's Our Vanishing Wild Life' (New York 1913).