Massachusetts Audubon Society 



STATE LEGISLATION. 



SPRING SHOOTING. The usual annual attempt to get the State to 

 authorize spring shooting has been duly made. 

 This time it took the form of a bill which would permit, so far as the 

 authority of the State was concerned, the shooting of ducks and geese 

 until January sixteenth. The Federal law, of course, stops the shoot- 

 ing at sunset on the thirty-first day of December. Hence such a law 

 if passed by Massachusetts would at first seem to have no effect. But 

 this is not altogether true. In the first place the offenders under the law as 

 it now stands can be arrested by local officers. Under the proposed change 

 offenders after January first could not be proceeded against by State author- 

 ities, but only by those of the Federal Government. At present the Federal 

 wardens are few and do not prosecute directly, but merely take evidence and 

 forward it to the Department of Justice at Washington. Moreover, and 

 here is the real meaning of the bill, such a law, passed by the State, would 

 be used as a lever to pry open the regulations promulgated by the Biologi- 

 cal Survey at Washington, next year, getting a longer open season by Federal 

 statute. So swift and clever was the work done on this bill by its promotors, 

 that it passed both the House and the Senate before we were able to stop it. 

 So strong was the protest against this bill that it was held up for a con- 

 siderable time before final enactment and an amendment added to it that 

 nullified all its provisions, making it a farce, so far as any effect on the 

 Massachusetts law goes. In spite of this it was placed before Governor 

 McCall, and, to the astonishment of all who understood the real purport of 

 the enactment, was signed, 



ATTEMPT TO An attempt to repeal the trespass law has also been 

 REPEAL TRES- made. Section 14, of Chapter 92 of the revised laws. 

 PASS LAW. the section quoted on the Audubon Society's "No 



Shooting" poster, reads as follows: "Whoever, for the 

 purpose of shooting or trapping, enters upon land without the permission 

 of the owner thereof, after such owner has conspicuously posted thereon 

 notice that shooting or trapping thereon is prohibited, shall be punished 

 by a fine of not more than twenty dollars." 



The "Sportsmen's League," said to be an organization of hunters in 

 the western part of the State, put in this bill and argued it before the 

 Committee on Fisheries and Game on March 9th. The Audubon Society, 

 the Board of Agriculture, the State Grange, and others expressed disap- 

 proval of it and a desire to see the law stand as it is at present. It is not 

 probable that the bill will be favorably reported or that it has any chance 

 of passing. 



THE STARLING Some important matters in the way of constructive 

 BILL. legislation concerning birds have come up this year 



also. Several of these were bills proposed by the 

 State Board of Agriculture, on the recommendation of the State Ornithol- 

 ogist. One was the removal of the Starling from the list of protected birds. 

 Like the House Sparrow the Starling is an imported bird which has in- 

 creased very rapidly of late years and threatens by its very numbers to be 



