THE FEDERAL MIGRATORY BIRD LAW AND 

 THE MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY ACT 



What has been commonly known as the Migratory Bird Law 

 was an enactment of the U. S. Congress. After stating the now 

 legally established principle that birds that regularly migrate 

 beyond state limits are the property of the United States, this 

 law places such birds under the protection of the Federal Govern- 

 ment. The act was approved by President Wilson and became a 

 law on March 4, 1913. Later an agreement in the form of a treaty 

 was proposed with Great Britain, which had for its object securing 

 the cooperation of Canada, thus insuring the easier and more 

 complete operation of this bird legislation on a large scale. This 

 treaty was finally accepted and ratified by all parties concerned, 

 being concluded at Washington, August 16, 1916, approved July 

 3, 1918, and made effective July 31, 1918, by proclamation of the 

 President of the United States, which brought to full fruition a 

 quarter-century struggle in behalf of our birds and mankind by 

 many tireless workers. This treaty or convention with Great 

 Britain is to be known as the "Migratory Bird Treaty Act." 



As showing just what are considered migratory birds under 

 the terms of this Act, the following extract will be of interest to 

 Minnesota bird students: 



"Regulation 1. — Definitions of Migratory Birds 



Migratory birds, included in the terms of the convention between the United 

 States and Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds, concluded August 

 16, 1916, are as follows: 



1. Migratory game birds: 



(a) Anatidae, or waterfowl, including brant, wild ducks, geese, and swans. 



(b) Gruidae, or cranes, including little brown, sandhill, and whooping cranes. 



(c) Rallidae, or rails, including coots, gallinules, and sora and other rails. 



{d) Limicolae, or shorebirds, including avocets, curlews, dowitchers, god- 

 wits, knots, oyster catchers, phalaropes, plovers, sandpipers, snipe, stilts, surf birds, 

 turnstones, willet, woodcock, and yellowlegs. 



(e) Columbidae, or pigeons, including doves and wild pigeons. 



2. Migratory insectivorous birds: Bobolinks, catbirds, chickadees, cuckoos, 

 flickers, flycatchers, grosbeaks, hummingbirds, kinglets, martins, meadowlarks, 

 nighthawks or bull-bats, nuthatches, orioles, robins, shrikes, swallows, swifts, tana- 

 gers, titmice, thrushes, vireos, warblers, waxwings, whip-poor-wills, woodpeckers, 

 and wrens, and all other perching birds which feed entirely or chiefly on insects. 



3. Other migratory nongame birds: Auks, auklets, bitterns, fulmars, gannets, 

 grebes, guillemots, gulls, herons, jaegers, loons, murres, petrels, pufhns, shearwaters, 

 and terns." 



