There was!
Only one week previously, a good friend (who declines to be named) gave us two thousand dollars, of real money, for just such emergencies.
Within thirty-six hours an entirely new fighting force had been organized and equipped for service. Within one week, those reinforcements had made a profound impression on the defenses of the enemy, and in the end the great fight was won. Of our small campaign fund it took away over one thousand dollars; but the victory was worth it.
With money enough,—a reasonable sum,—the birds of North America, and some of the small-mammal species also, can be saved. The big game that is hunted and killed outside the game preserves, and outside of such places as New Brunswick and the Adirondacks, can not be saved—until each species is given perpetual protection. Colorado is saving a small remnant of her mountain sheep, but Montana and Wyoming are wasting theirs, because they allow killing, and the killers are ten times too numerous for the sheep. They imagine that by permitting only the killing of rams they are saving the species; but that is an absolute fallacy, and soon it will have a fatal ending.
With an endowment fund of $2,000,000 (only double the price of the two old Velasquez paintings purchased recently by a gentleman of New York!) a very good remnant of the wild life of North America could be saved.
But who will give the fund, or even a quarter of it?
Thus far, the largest sums ever given in America for the cause of wild-life protection, so far as I know personally, have been the following:
| Albert Wilcox, to the National Association of Audubon Societies, | $322,000 |
| Mary Butcher Fund, to the National Association of Audubon Societies | 12,000 |
| Mrs. Russell Sage, for the purchase of Marsh Island | 150,000 |
| American Game Protective and Propagation Association, from the manufacturers of firearms and ammunition, annually | 25,000 |
| Charles Willis Ward and E.A. McIlhenny, purchase of game preserve presented to Louisiana | 39,000 |
| Mrs. Russell Sage, miscellaneous gifts to the National Audubon Society | 20,000 |
| The American Bison Society for the Montana National Herd | 10,526 |
| New York Zoological Society, total about | 20,000 |
| John E. Thayer, purchase of game preserve | 5,000 |
| Caroline Phelps Stokes Bird Fund, N.Y. Zoological Society | 5,000 |
| Boone and Crockett Fund for Preservation | 5,000 |
| A Friend in Rochester | 2,500 |
| Henry C. Frick | 1,500 |
| Samuel Thorne | 1,250 |
Of all the above, the only endowment funds yielding an annual income are those of the National Association of Audubon Societies and the Caroline Phelps Stokes fund of $5,000 in the treasury of the Zoological Society.