CHAPTER XVII 



BIRD-PROTECTION BY GOVERNMENTS — STATE 

 AND NATIONAL 



Work of State Governments 



Brief mention has been made in a previous chap- 

 ter of the work done by the Audubon Societies in 

 procuring legislation. The nature of this legislation 

 may now be examined a little more carefully. 



History of legislation. The first laws for the 

 protection of song-birds were passed during the last 

 of the eighteenth century, but it was not till the 

 middle of the nineteenth century that laws pro- 

 tecting these birds began to be general. These were 

 first adopted in the States in the northeastern 

 United States, later by those in the western United 

 States, and still more recently by the States in the 

 South, till now every State in the Union accords 

 some degree of protection to the song-birds. 



In the first laws the distinction between the in- 

 sectivorous birds, which were to be protected at all 

 times, and the game-birds, for which open seasons 

 were to be allowed, was not clearly defined. In 

 1886 the Bird Protection Committee of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union drafted a law which has 

 since been known as the Model A.O.U. Law, and 



