THE WAR FOR AMERICA'S WILD LIFE 



265 



"tlie (lark and bloody ground, "" yielded 

 only a law giving long protection to 

 her pitiful last remnants of mountain 

 sheep and antelope. Arizona made 

 good last vear at her November elec- 

 tion. Oregon, California, Colorado, 

 Nebraska, the two Dakotas, Minnesota, 

 Kansas, and Oklahoma yielded nothing 

 of any real importance, but Minnesota 

 came near to effecting a reform. A de- 

 mand for a three-year close season for 

 pinnated grouse was backed by the best 

 sportsmen of the state. 



The East that lies east of Pittsburgh 

 is far more aroused for the perpetua- 

 tion of wild life than is the West or the 

 South. New Mexico is bubbling over 

 with enthusiasm to bring back the 

 game that once was so abundant in that 

 state. Colorado is a sad example of the 

 results of game laws that have looked 

 good on the outside, but which have 

 really been far too liberal to the hunter 

 and too hard upon the game. Out of 

 her once great stock of elk, deer of two 

 species, mountain sheep, antelope, and 

 bison, no hunting now is permitted of 

 anything save rabbits and upland game 

 birds ! The big game is so fearfully 

 scarce that all hunting of it has been 

 stopped. 



Texas is in a deplorable condition. 

 With no paid game wardens, with lack 

 of enforcement of ineffectual laws, and 

 with automobiles and pump guns com- 

 bined with a savage determination to 

 kill until the last head of game is dead, 

 the game is being swept away at a 

 frightful rate. 



The automobile, as a factor in game 

 destruction, surely has come "slaying 

 and to slay." It is doing its deadly 

 work among the upland game birds 

 through the whole width of the Ameri- 

 can continent. In India it operates 

 with telling effect among the big game 

 of the western Ghauts, and in Australia 



it is fatally active among the kanga- 

 roos. New York and North Dakota 

 have forbidden, by law, the use of the 

 automobile in hunting — and all other 

 states must do the same ! 



Public aversion to the killing of 

 female deer has taken form in "buck 

 laws" in twenty states. Quail now are 

 protected by long close seasons in four- 

 teen states. Prong-horned antelope are 

 protected in all the states they inhabit, 

 and mountain sheep are immune from 

 slaughter in all states save Wyoming. 

 The total number of migratory bird 

 species protected by the federal law is 

 1,022. 



The international migratory bird 

 treaty with Canada was fully ratified 

 on December 6, 1916. It lacks, how- 

 ever, an enabling act of Congress to 

 carry its terms into effect, as well as 

 $200,000 to meet the cost of enforce- 

 ment throughout the United States. 

 The Hitchcock bill, introduced in the 

 last session of the 64th Congress, was 

 almost completely eviscerated in the 

 committees to which it was referred, and 

 its proposed appropriation ($170,000) 

 was calmly stricken out. If the people 

 of the United States desire to see that 

 treaty enforced, it is time for about 

 one million of them to say so, and ask 

 for the fund necessary ! The bill was re- 

 introduced in the new Senate on April 

 10, by Senator Smith, of Arizona 

 (S. 1553), minus the $170,000 abso- 

 lutely required for enforcement in the 

 forty-eight states. 



The hardest fighting, and the most 

 of it, that occurred in the great western 

 drive for the protection of wild life, 

 took place in Iowa over the quail. 

 Eight college professors, representing 

 seven institutions, a dozen Iowa editors, 

 a goodly array of farmers, and strong 

 bodies in the two houses of the legisla- 

 ture, fought the state game warden and 



