Transcript created from handwritten Ebell Club notes by Judith Thompson in the spring of 2020
For Los Angeles Audubon’s Western Tanager July–August 2020 Vol. 86 No. 6.
The Ebell Club, founded in 1894, is now located on Wilshire Blvd at Lucerne in a lovely building opened in 1927. The delightful passage below appeared in “department”, or learning group, hand-penned notes from 1917. It is relevant even today with regard to birds.
The regular meeting of the department of California History and Landmarks [of the Ebell Club] met on April 26 [1917] …
Miss Phillipson introduced Mrs. Harriet Myers, secretary of the Audubon Society and chairman of the Department of Birds, Wildlife and Flowers of the General and State Federations [of Women’s Clubs]. Her subject was California birds.
A great deal of bird work has been done in California this year by the Audubon Society, a film, “The Spirit of Audubon”, and many lantern slides being used by lecturers, who try especially to reach the children. The members of the women’s clubs are asked to act as game wardens and report any destruction of bird life. The shrike, linnet, California jay and English sparrow are the only small birds not protected by law, except in districts one, two and three where the blackbirds are unprotected. There have been many fights in the legislature to protect the meadow lark, which does some damage, but is a very valuable insect eater.
Mrs. Myers spoke of the desirability of licensing cats, saying it was the stray cats that did the most damage to birds.
There are over 500 different birds in California, nearly all of them of great value as destroyers of insect life.
Twenty-nine varieties eat the black scale. Swallows destroy the cotton boll weevil. Orioles eat some fruit but do much more good by destroying the worms in the orchards. Mrs. Myers showed colored pictures of many of the best-known California birds, and concluded by giving an original poem “A Toast to the Birds”.
This note followed in the minutes of the next meeting of the department. Look up the lovely song: The regular meeting of the department of California History and Landmarks was held Thursday May 11, [1917] Miss Phillipson presiding. After the reading of the minutes, Miss Hynes played the Brahms Intermezzo and “Hark! Hark! The Lark” by Schubert-Liszt.
