| New Hampshire | Mrs. F. W. Batchelder, Manchester. |
| Massachusetts | Miss Harriet E. Richards, care Boston Society of Natural History, Boston. |
| Rhode Island | Mrs. H. T. Grant, Jr., 187 Bowen street, Providence. |
| Connecticut | Mrs. William Brown Glover, Fairfield. |
| New York | Miss Emma H. Lockwood, 243 West Seventy-fifth street, New York City. |
| New Jersey | Miss Anna Haviland, 53 Sandford Ave., Plainfield, N. J. |
| Pennsylvania | Mrs. Edward Robins, 114 South Twenty-first street, Philadelphia. |
| District of Columbia | Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. |
| Wheeling, W. Va. (branch of Pa. Society) | Elizabeth I. Cummins, 1314 Chapline street, Wheeling. |
| Ohio | Miss Clara Russell, 903 Paradrome street, Cincinnati. |
| Indiana | Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. |
| Illinois | Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. |
| Iowa | Miss Nellie S. Board, Keokuk. |
| Wisconsin | Mrs. George W. Peckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. |
| Minnesota | Mrs. J. P. Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul. |
| Tennessee | Mrs. C. C. Conner, Ripley, |
| Texas | Miss Cecile Seixas, 2008 Thirty-ninth street, Galveston. |
| California | Mrs. George S. Gay, Redlands. |
A Bird Class for Children
One of the most frequent questions asked by those seeking to win children to an appreciation of birds is, "How, when we have awakened the interest, can we keep it alive?"
The only way to accomplish this, to my thinking, is to take the children out-of-doors and introduce them to the 'bird in the bush,' to the bird as a citizen of a social world as real in all its duties and requirements as our own.
There is a group of people with ultra-theoretical tendencies, who insist upon considering the bird merely as a feathered vertebrate that must not be in any way humanized, or taken from its perch in the evolutionary scheme, to be brought to the plane of our daily lives. In teaching children, I believe in striving to humanize the bird as far as is consistent with absolute truth, that the child may, through its own love of home, parents, and its various desires, be able to appreciate the corresponding traits in the bird. How can this best be done? By reading to children? That is one way; and good, accurate, and interesting bird books are happily plentiful. But when the out-door season comes, little heads grow tired of books, and anything that seems like a lesson is repugnant.
Then comes the chance to form a bird class, or a bird party, if the word class seems too formidable. A dozen children are quite enough to be easily handled. The ages may range from six to twelve. Arrange to have them meet outdoors once a week, in the morning, during June and July. A pleasant garden or a vineclad piazza will do for a beginning; it is inadvisable to tire children by taking them far afield until they have learned to identify a few very common birds in their natural surroundings.
Children who are familiar with even the very best pictures of birds must at first be puzzled by seeing the real bird at a distance, and perhaps partly screened by foliage. The value of the out-door bird class is, that to be successful it must teach rapid and accurate personal observation.
"Very true," you say, "but the birds will not stay still while the children are learning to observe." Yes; yet this difficulty may be met in two ways. If you are so situated that you can borrow say twenty-five mounted birds from a museum or the collection of a friend, you will have a very practical outfit.
Choose four or five birds, not more for one day, take them outdoors, and place them in positions that shall resemble their natural haunts as much as possible. For example, place the Song Sparrow in a little bush, the Bluebird on a post, and the Chippy on a path. Let the children look at them near by and then at a distance, so that a sense of proportion and color value will be developed unconsciously.
After this, the written description of the habits of the birds, which you must read or tell the children, will have a different meaning. This method may be varied by looking up live specimens of the birds thus closely observed.