The United States National Museum contains a large and expensive corps of zoological curators and assistant curators, some of whom long ago should have taken upon themselves the task of reforming the laws of the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, at their very doors! This museum should maintain at least one man in the field of protection, and the existence of the Biological Survey is no excuse for the Museum's inactivity.
The Field Museum of Chicago is a great institution, but it appears to be inactive in wild-life protection, and indifferent to the fate of our wild life. Its influence is greatly needed on the firing line, especially in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and northern Minnesota. First of all the odious sale-of-game situation in Chicago should be cleaned up!
The Philadelphia Academy of Sciences has been represented on the A.O.U. Committee on Bird Protection by Mr. Witmer Stone. The time has come when this Academy should be represented on the firing line as a virile, wide-awake, self-sacrificing and aggressive force. It is perhaps the oldest zoological body in the United States! Its scientific standing is unquestioned. Its members must know of the carnage that is going on around them, for they are not ignorant men. The Pennsylvania State Game Commission to-day stands in urgent need of active, vigorous and persistent assistance from the Philadelphia Academy in the fierce campaign already in progress for additional protective laws. Will that help be given?
The Carnegie Institute of Washington (endowment $22,000,000) unquestionably owes a great duty toward wild life, no portion of which has yet been discharged. Academic research work is all very well, but it does not save faunas from annihilation. In the saving of the birds and mammals of North America a hundred million people are directly interested, and the cause is starving for money, men and publicity. Education is not the ONLY duty of educators!
The Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh should be provided by Pittsburgh with sufficient funds that its Director can put a good man into the field of protection, and maintain his activities. The State of Pennsylvania, and the nation at large, needs such a worker at Pittsburgh; and this statement is not open to argument!
| The California Academy of Sciences; | Appear to have done nothing noteworthy in promoting the preservation and increase of the wild life of America. |
| The Chicago Academy of Sciences; | |
| The New York Academy of Sciences; | |
| The National Academy of Sciences; | |
| The Rochester Academy of Sciences; | |
| The Philadelphia Zoological Society; | |
| The National Zoological Park; |
A Few Of The Institutions Of Learning Which Should Each Devote One Man To This Cause.
Columbia University, of New York, has a very large and strong corps of zoological professors in its Department of Biology. No living organism is too small or too worthless to be studied by high-grade men; but does any man of Columbia ever raise his voice, actively and determinedly, for the preservation of our fauna, or any other fauna? Columbia should give the services of one man wholly to this cause.