26 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



tural Appropriation Bill, and so riding it became 

 a law. 



Stated most briefly, the new law provides that 

 the Secretary of Agriculture shall frame regula- 

 tions for the protection, by the national govern- 

 ment, of all the birds of the United States that do 

 not abide continuously in any one locality, but pass 

 from state to state. The regulations first proposed 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture were published 

 three months in advance of their becoming effective 

 and during that period all persons interested were 

 at liberty to be heard upon them, either in objection 

 or in approval. At the end of three months, by a 

 presidential proclamation which was issued on 

 October 1, 1913, the final draft of the regulations 

 became a federal law. 



The federal migratory bird law as now in force 

 is the most potent and far-reaching measure ever 

 enacted for the protection of our native birds, and 

 any occurrence that would impair or destroy its 

 usefulness would be a national and continental 

 calamity. Its most important features are the 

 following : 



1. It stops all spring shooting of migratory 

 birds. 



2. It will stop the slaughter of song-birds, 

 swallows, the migratory woodpeckers and other 

 insectivorous birds. 



3. It confers a five-year close season on all save 

 six of our sixty species of shore-birds. 



