State Reports 249 STATE REPORTS The reports of the State Societies are herewith presented, and it is sug- gested to the reader that a careful perusal of each one will show how many earnest and active men and ,women are engaged in the great humanitarian, as well as economic, work of preserving the wild birds of the country for the pleasure and benefit of the generations that will follow us. California. — "The Audubon Society of the State of California was organized May 31, 1906. In the four months of its life it has printed and circulated, in the interest of song-bird and game protection, 1,500 pamphlets, leaflets and circulars and 2,000 signs and warning-cards, and has distributed a considerable number of the leaflets issued by the National Association. It has mailed copies of the bird laws to every farmers' organization and every school superintendent in the state, and its warning-cards have been placed in several hundred postofHces, resorts, hotels and livery stables. Its secre- tary has written more than 1,000 letters and mailed nearly 5,000 parcels, and, before the meeting of the Legislature in January next, the Society will be in touch with every active farmers' club and grange and game protective association in the state. The local Audubon societies, senior and junior, previously organized, and several humane societies with Audubon committees, are already affili- ated with the State Society and are giving faithful and effective aid for the saving of the birds. The Society has gained the valued help of a great num- ber of influential newspapers, and numbers among its members many of the leading educators and other prominent professional men and women of California. These, by their active interest and splendid cooperation, have lightened the labors and greatly encouraged the officers of the Society in their efforts to spread, to every corner of the state, the gospel of bird protec- tion and reasonable conservation of wild game. An important result of the work of the State Society, during its brief but active life, is the marked gain in public sentiment favorable to the enforcement of the non-game bird laws and the enactment of better laws for the protection of the wild game. One of the important results of this sentiment will undoubtedly be the cutting-down of the open season for tak- ing Doves, to a much more humane and reasonable period than is provided by the present law. A hunting-license law, which the Society has strongly urged, is also one of the probabilities. The Society has also actively sup- ported, and will continue to work for, the proposed act of Congress authori- zing the President to set apart portions of the Goverment Forest Reserves as game and bird refuges and breeding grounds. A very strong public senti- ment favors this proposition in California.
