The Believing Years

AWS A

provisions granting the right of hunting in the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Ordinance of 1647. As soon as the United States Government was formed, in 1776, the various States began to make laws on the subject, and these have increased in numbers with the passing of years. For example, between the years 1901 to 1910, North Carolina alone passed three hundred and six different game laws. As v

y employed in taking game, as, for example, netting, trapping, and shooting at night. (3) Prohibiting or regulating the sale of game. By destroying the market the incentive for much excessive killing is removed. (4) Bag limit; that is, indicating the number

lves, antelopes, and moose. Game birds include Swans, Geese, Ducks, Rails, Coots, Woodcocks, Snipes, Plovers, Curlews, Wild Turkeys, Grouse, Pheasants, Partridges, and

to all useful non-game birds, gave the first clear statutory terminology for defining "game birds." It also provided for the issuing of permits for the collecting of wild birds and their eggs for scientific purposes. The States of New York and Massachusetts that year adopted the law. Arkansas f

uty it is to select an executive officer who in turn appoints game wardens throughout the State. These men in some cases are paid salaries, in others they receive only a per diem wage or receive certain fees fo

s taking a share of the responsibility

the Lacey Law, one of which prohibited the shipment of birds or parts thereof from a State in which they had been illegally killed, or from which it was illegal to sh

United States is the one known as the Federal Migratory Game Law or the McLean Law. A

Are Protected

ouds, and by stages began to journey toward their winter quarters beneath Southern skies. If the older birds that had often taken the same trip thought anything abou

farther down the river there was still a marked absence of gunners. The same conditions prevailed all the way down the valley until the sunken grounds of Arkansas and Mississippi came into view. What did this mean? Heretofore, at this season,

those who had been accustomed to seek pleasure afield with gun and decoys? No, indeed, banish the thought

e due to the enactment of a United States law known as the Federal Migratory G

the task of enacting protective measures for insuring the continuance of the supply of desirable game birds and animals. But as the years went by, and the game

mplex system of prohibitive measures regarding seasons for hunting, methods of killing, si

uail, Ducks, and some other species of birds highly esteemed as food, the object of this being to restock covers that had been d

e of our citizens who enjoy the excitement and recreation of going afield with gun and dog. It could easily be proven on paper that by judiciously regulating the shooting, and

ed; the gunners were on hand every fall in increasi

eference to the fortunes of the water fowl and shore birds that the greatest apprehension has been felt. Approximately all of the species concerned are of migratory habits. The open s

s of those who urged the passage of such laws. New York State, for example, tried the experiment, and within two years thousands of Black Ducks were breeding where for a long time they had not been known to occur in summer. So the feeling became general among bird protectors that it would be a

da island owned and guard

of spring shooting, and for putting to an end the ceaseless wrangling that continually went on in the various legislatures when the subject was brought up. This gentleman, G

the states further of their inalienable rights. This remarkable document was discussed to some extent but nothing was done. Four years later Congressman John W. Weeks reintroduced the bill with slight modifications. Nothing came of this any more than of the bill that he started going in 1909. In 1911 he again brought forward this pet measure toward which Congress had so often turned a cold shoulder. Senator George P. McLean set a similar bill afloat in the troubled waters of the Senate. Nothing happened, however, until the spring of 1912, when committee hearings were given on these bills i

protection to all migratory game and insect-eating birds in the United States. The Secretary of Agriculture, to whose department this unusual duty was assigned, read the law thoughtfully, concluded that the task d

e records stored in the Survey offices, and seasoning these with their own good judgment and knowledge of existing conditions, they brought out in a period of th

the effect of laws it was necessary that they should be advertised for a period of at l

isapproval, and possibly both sounds might be heard. As long experience has shown that it is necessary to have public opinion approve of a game law if it is to be effective, one can well understand that, following the mailing of the circular of rules, these gentl

ion points; for it has ever been the case that the dissatisfied ones of earth a

ess. They came nearer being formed for the benefit of the birds instead of for the pleasure and convenience

and shore birds, which included Plover, Snipe, Woodcock, and Sandpipers. Migratory insectivorous birds were enumerated as T

with them separately and distinctively. Therefore, after declaring it to be illegal to kill any bird of either class between sunset and

ina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee, the Robin-potpie-loving inhabitants must in future content themselves with such game birds as Quail, Grouse, Wild Turkeys, and Ducks. T

and insect-eating birds in the States of Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, and New Mexico, constituting the g

olute closed hunting season on sixty-two s

as of absorbing interest to every member of the vast army of five million hunters in the United States. This is the regulation which divides the country into z

tion of such birds from the beginning of the first season to the close of the last. It is believed that better results will follow the adoption of the fewest possible number of zones and so regulating the seasons in each as to include the time when such species is in the best condition or at the maximum of abundance during the autumn. For this reason the country has been divided into two zones, as nearly equal as possible, one to inclu

form the states have since been changing their laws to conform to the Government regulations. After being tried out for three years these rules recently were modified by making five

000 annually-which is just about one tenth the minimum amount needed for the purpose. This paltry sum has been expended as judiciously as possible with marked results for good. Trouble, however, soon developed in the courts. One autumn day Harvey C. Schauver went a-hunting on Big Lake, Arkansas, and finding no Ducks handy he shot a Coot, which was

ted States Supreme Court should pass on the constitutionality of the law, the Arkansas case havi

lost if such a catastrophe should occur. The first movement in this new direction was made by Elihu Root on January 14, 1913, when he introduced in the Senate a resolution requesting the President to propose to the other governments the neg

so if the Supreme Court declares the latter to be invalid the Government still stan

e short uniform closed seasons for shooting shore bi

ent taking a serious hand in a problem which had been found to be too difficult of solution by the different states wo