8 NORTH AMERICAN DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS. 



So rapidly are some species diminishing in numbers in certain States 

 that the market supply is already threatened, and Minnesota has found 

 it necessary to pass laws prohibiting not only the export of ducks, 

 but even their sale within the State limits. Such radical legislation 

 in a State where only a few years since waterfowl abounded on every 

 lake and waterway, reveals how imminent is the danger and how press- 

 ing the value and importance of prohibitive laws, and it becomes evi- 

 dent that if any consideralde number of waterfowl are to be preserved, 

 spring shooting must be abolished and the sale of wild fowl limited to 

 the States where killed. 



The enforcement of moderately stringent protective laws, however, 

 and the establishment of preserves in the States where waterfowl can 

 be sure of shelter and safety, are likely to result not only in averting 

 the threatened extinction of certain species, but in the increase of all 

 waterfowl to a point somewhere near their recent abundance. Should 

 the lessons of the past be unheeded and protection be withheld for a 

 few years, then measures of the most radical kind will be necessary. 



Of the 64 species and subspecies of ducks, geese, and swans which 

 occur in North America north of Mexico, 24 breed in the United States. 

 The species most important to us are the wood duck, mallard, black 

 duck, teal, canvasback, redhead, and Canada goose. Several of these 

 species breed only in the Northern States; ))ut the cinnamon teal and 

 ruddy duck nest as far south as southern California, and the wood duck 

 breeds almost everywhere throughout the United States, and, more- 

 over, the great bulk of this species winters within our boundaries. 



It is a sad commentary on our present system of game protection that 

 the wood duck, one of the handsomest of our native birds and one 

 whose breeding range is almost entirely within our boundaries, is the 

 species which has suffered most. So persistently has this duck been 

 pursued that in some sections it has been practically exterminated. 

 Even in States in which it still breeds commonly, as in Delaware and 

 Maryland on the Atlantic coast and in Illinois in the Mississippi Valley, 

 public sentiment fails to recognize the importance of adequately pro- 

 tecting the bird, and the laws still permit it to be destroyed late in the 

 spring. As a result the wood duck is constantly diminishing in 

 numbers, and soon is likely to be known only from books or by 

 tradition. 



PROTECTION. 



Wherever waterfowl already breed, or where the conditions are 

 such as to favor their remaining during the summer, every effort 

 should be made to increase the number of breeding birds by adequate 

 protection both in the spring and during the nesting season, and, 

 wdierever possible, game refuges or preserves suitable for breeding 

 purposes should be established. 



