Vol i90? VI ] Notes and News - 107 



for having in possession on March 30, 1905, in Kings County, N. Y., one 

 Golden Plover and one Blackcock from Russia. . . . This game was said 

 to have been captured in the open season, purchased in London, and im- 

 ported into the United States in accordance with the tariff law and regu- 

 lations." On April 7, Silz obtained a writ of habeas corpus from the 

 supreme court in Brooklyn, and on June 16 the writ was quashed and the 

 relator was remanded to the custody of the sheriff. He appealed the case, 

 and the appeal was sustained by the appellate division of the supreme 

 court. On February 26, 1907, the court of appeals reversed this decision, 

 and Silz was again remanded to the custody of the sheriff of Kings County. 

 On July 27, the final order quashing and dismissing the writ of habeas 

 corpus was issued. In 1907 the case was appealed to the Supreme Court 

 of the United States on writ of error. The case was argued October 15, 

 1908, and the final decision was rendered on November 2, 1908, affirming 

 the judgment of the court of appeals of New York. The opinion of the 

 court was rendered by Mr. Justice Day. 



Dr. Palmer cites the opinion in full, and further gives a history of the 

 question of the right of a State to regulate possession and sale of game taken 

 outside its boundaries. He also comments on the importance of the de- 

 cision in its relation to game protection in the United States, stating: 

 "The present decision in the Silz case disposes of the question whether a 

 State has the right to regulate possession and sale of game taken outside 

 its boundaries — a question which has been before the State courts in one 

 phase or another for more than thirty-five years, and which is here pre- 

 sented in an extreme form, namely, regulation of the sale of game imported 

 from foreign countries." This decision also, he further states, "directly 

 affects dealers in game, importers, and many persons engaged in the mil- 

 linery trade, and is also of unusual interest to sportsmen and friends of 

 game protection." 



Evidently if a State can regulate the importation and sale of game, it 

 can also regulate, or prohibit, the importation and sale of foreign birds for 

 millinery purposes, and thus aid in checking the immense slaughter of 

 birds in foreign countries for such use. 



Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson, formerly of Blees Military Academy, 

 Macon, Mo., is now engaged in zoological exploration in Arctic America, 

 in the interest of the American Museum of Natural History. The expedi- 

 tion, in charge of Mr. Vilhjalmr Stefansson, left New York in April, 1908, 

 reaching the Great Slave Lake region in June, and later descended the 

 Mackenzie River to the Arctic coast, where the explorers will pass the win- 

 ter. The expedition is expected to occupy two years, Mr. Stefansson giving 

 special attention to the anthropology and Dr. Anderson to the zoology of 

 portions of Arctic America thus far practically unexplored. The first 

 shipment of specimens reached the Museum in October, and though not 

 large, contained a number of birds and mammals of much interest, includ- 

 ing the nest of the Bohemian Waxwing described in the present number of 

 this journal (see pp. 10-12) by Dr. Anderson. 



