204 Bird -Lore and Mr. Henry Olds, in Takoma and Gar- rett Park, suburbs of Washington. In legislation we have made some prog- ress, the Audubon Society, in cooperation with the Fish and Game Association, having prepared an amendment to the present game law, based upon the A. O. U. model bird law, and it has been favor- ably reported by the District Committee, both in the House and Senate We have printed and circulated a portion of the existing District game laws. There is no evidence, so far, of the sale in the markets of Robins as game birds, but the prevention of their sale requires eternal vigilance. Each year brings added encouragement, and we feel especially pleased that our efforts to have the study of birds hold a prominent place in the nature work of the schools has been entirely successful. Jeanie Maury Patten, Secrdai-y. The Destruction of Ptarmigan for Millinery Purposes Our attention has been called to some unquestionably authentic, and 1t= ce un- usually valuable statis^'cs in regard to the destruction fo'" millinery purposes of Ptarmigan or Willow Grouse in northern Russia, contained in ' A Russian Province of the North ' by Alexander Platonovich Engelhardt, governor of the Province of Archangel (Lippincott, iSgg). Governor Engelhardt states that while the birds' bodies are worth about one- half a cent each, their wings bring a cent and a half a pair, and to supply the feather dealers' unlimited demands, the birds are killed in such enormous num- bers that a single shipment from Arch- angel, on August 17, 1898, consisted of ten tons of zvings ! Among the tables in the appendix of this volume is one giving the govern- ment's record of game killed each year, from which it would appear that the ac- tive demand for the wings of Grouse or Ptarmigan began in 1894. Thus, we learn from this table that in 1893 there were recorded as killed 117,258 Willow and Hazel Grouse, but in 1894 the num- ber was 428,094 ; in 1895,412,802; in 1896, 652,530, and in 1897, 485,332. In four years, therefore, nearly 2,000,000 Grouse were recorded as killed in the single Province of Archangel — and doubtless many more were destroyed of which no record was made. The continued destruction of these birds at this rate means their early ex- termination, when the inhabitants of this comparatively barren region will have been deprived of an important source of food supply, which, properly used, should prove exhaustless. Sentiment aside, therefore, the destruc- tion of Grouse in northern Russia for millinery purposes, raises a question in economics of the first importance. — F. M. C. ptarmigan's wing; winter plumage length 7^7/4 in. Note the short outer first feather. In the Pigeon's wing the first three feathers are of about equal length.
