520 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



efficient. The Fish and Game Commissioners are authorized, 

 empowered and directed to enforce the fish and game laws 

 of the State; this they are now doing as well as they can, 

 with the limited means at their command. 



Six reports advocate giving the officers of the commission 

 a right to search suspected persons in the field without pro- 

 curing a warrant. Such an enactment may not be constitu- 

 tional, but is greatly needed. Every citizen who believes 

 in the protection of our game birds and song birds should 

 favor such a law. It would help greatly to stop ferreting, 

 killing game birds out of season, and the shooting and trap- 

 ping of the smaller birds by boys and foreigners. 



A large number of correspondents demand more stringent 

 laws than those now on the statute books. A close season 

 of from three to ten years on all game birds, ducks and 

 shore birds, as advocated by twelve correspondents, would 

 undoubtedly help the birds ; this is the only certain way to 

 check the extirpation of the shore birds. But this plan 

 might be opposed by nearly all sportsmen and shooters 

 generally, and there is little hope of its adoption until such 

 time as the danger of exterminating the birds shall become 

 patent to every one. Shorter open seasons no doubt would 

 help ; but, unless the season is made of uniform length for 

 all game birds, it is rather ineffectual to shorten the season 

 on one species, for when men are in the field with guns in 

 their hands, all game birds will be shot. 



Five correspondents advise the stopping of all spring 

 shooting. This is the most important measure yet proposed 

 which seems to have any hope of success. If all spring 

 and summer shooting could be stopped throughout the United 

 States and Canada, we should be nearer the solution of the 

 problem of bird protection than we shall be likely soon to 

 get in any other way. The laws of Massachusetts already 

 protect the partridge, woodcock, quail, wood duck, black 

 duck, teal, plover, snipe, rail and marsh or beach birds in 

 spring; but plover, snipe, rail and marsh or beach birds 

 may be killed after July 15. This summer shooting must 

 be stopped eventually. The river ducks should all have the 

 same protection in spring that is now given to black duck, 



