mily. While at home they follow the boys
around the barn-yard, squawking for feed like so many tame ducks.

This is the greatest sight I have ever witnessed, and one that I
could not believe existed until I had seen it. Certainly it is worth
travelling many miles to see, and no one, after seeing it, would
care to shoot birds that, when kindly treated, make such charming
pets.

Since the above was published, the protected flocks of tame wild ducks
have become one of the most interesting sights of Florida. At Palm Beach
the tameness of the wild ducks when within their protected area, and
their wildness outside of it, has been witnessed by thousands of
visitors.

THE SAVING OF THE SNOWY EGRET IN THE UNITED STATES.--The time was when
very many persons believed that the devastations of the plume-hunters
of Florida and the Gulf Coast would be so long continued and so
persistently followed up to the logical conclusion that both species of
plume-furnishing egrets would disappear from the avifauna of the United
States. This expectation gave rise to feelings of resentment,
indignation and despair.

It happened, however, that almost at the last moment a solitary
individual set on foot an enterprise calculated to preserve the snowy
egret (which is the smaller of the two species involved), from final
extermination. The splendid success that has attended the efforts of Mr.
Edward A. McIlhenny, of Avery Island, Louisiana, is entitled not only to
admiration and praise, but also to the higher tribute of practical
imitation. Mr. McIlhenny is, first of all, a lover of birds, and a
humanitarian. He has traveled widely throughout the continent of North
America and elsewhere, and has seen much of wild life and man's
influence upon it. To-day his highest ambition is to create for the
benefit of the Present, and as a heritage to Posterity, a
mid-continental chain of great bird refuges, in which migrating wild
fowl and birds of all other species may find resting-places and refuges
during their migrations, and protected feeding-grounds in winter. In
this grand enterprise, the consummation of which is now in progress, Mr.
McIlhenny is associated with Mr. Charles Willis Ward, joint donor of the
splendid Ward-McIlhenny Bird Preserve of 13,000 acres, which recently
was presented to the State of Louisiana by its former owners.

The egret and heron preserve, however, is Mr. McIlhenny's individual
enterprise, and really furnished the