Page 341 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

BRINGING BACK VANISHED BIRDS AND GAME 319
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. ThesplendidsuccessthathasattendedtheeffortsofMr. Edward A. Mcllhenny, of Avery Island, Louisiana, is entitled not only to admiration and praise, but also to the higher tribute of practical imitation. Mr.Mcllhennyis,firstofall,aloverofbirds,andahuman- itarian. 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 pro- tected feeding-grounds in winter. In this grand enterprise, the con- summation of which is now in progress, Mr. Mcllhenny is associated with Mr. Charles Willis Ward, joint donor of the splendid Ward-Mcllhenny 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. Mcllhenny's in- dividual enterprise, and really furnished the motif of the larger move- ment. Of its inception and development, he has kindly furnished me the following account, accompanied by many beautiful photographs of egrets breeding in sanctuary, one of which appears on page 27.
In some recent publications I have seen statements to the effect that you believed the egrets were nearing extinction, owing to the persecution of plume hunters, so I know that you will be interested in the enclosed photographs, which were taken in my heron rookery, situated within 100 yards of my factory, where I am now sitting dictating this letter.
This rookery was started by me in 1896, because I saw at that time that the herons ofLouisianawerebeingrapidlyexterminatedbyplumehunters. IVIythoughtwasthat the way to preserve them would be to start an artificial rookery of them where they couldbethoroughlyprotected. WiththisendinviewIbuiltasmallpond,takingina wet space that contained a few willows and other shrubs which grow in wet places.
Inalargecageinthispond,Iraisedsomesnowyherons. Afterkeepingthebirdsin confinement for something over six montlis 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 tlie willows inthepond. Thiswasthestartofarookerythatnowcovers35acres,andcontains 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 tlie 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 tothisbeachforgravel. Thisterritoryalso]:)roducesagreatamountofnaturalfoodfor geese and ducks.