The Bird Department 



By A. A. Allen, Ph.D. 

 Assistant Professor of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 



WHAT IS A GAME BIRD? 



DURING the past few years the game laws of many 

 states have been radically revised and the question 

 of national and even international legislation for 

 the conservation of game has been settled. There still 

 remains unanswered, however, the fundamental question, 

 What is a game bird ? The federal migratory bird law and 

 the game laws of each state of the Union define what are 

 considered game birds within their jurisdiction but they 

 are not identical. The laws of other civilized countries are 







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A FLOCK OF WILD DUCKS, BLUEBILLS 



These waterfowl seen on Cayuga Lake, New York, satisfy all the requirements 

 of perfect game birds, except that they travel in flocks, thereby permitting more 

 than one to be brought down by a single shot and yielding less sport per bird 

 killed than the grouse, woodcock or snipe. 



still different, culminating in those of southern Europe 

 where every species of bird is legitimate game. But again 

 there are many extreme bird protectionists in this country 

 who believe that hunting is a relic of barbarism, its age 

 passed, and that no birds should be hunted for food or for 

 sport. The question naturally arises, then, What consti- 

 tutes a game bird? Shall certain species continue to be 

 hunted for food and sport, and if so which ones and why? 

 Shall game birds be the same throughout the country or is 

 there some reason for the differences in definitions other 

 than the will of the sportsmen or the whim of the legisla- 

 ture ? By the recent federal measure many states have lost 

 some of their time-honored game birds while others have 

 had offered them certain ones that they have long since 

 repudiated. Let us see which birds are generally recog- 

 nized as game, and if there is some logical reason for 

 their selection. 



By the provision of the federal law and the recent 

 treaty with Canada the following are recognized as 

 migratory game birds : 



(a) Anatidce, or waterfowl, including brant, wild 

 ducks, geese, and swans. 



(b) Gruida, or cranes, including little brown, sandhill, 

 and whooping cranes. 



(c) Rallidce, or rails, including coots, gallinules, and 

 sora or other rails. 



(d) Limicolce, or shore-birds, including avocets, cur- 

 lews, dowitchers, godwits, knots, oyster catchers, phala- 

 ropes, plovers, sandpipers, snipe, stilts, surf-birds, turn- 

 stones, willet, woodcock, and yellowlegs. 



(e) Columbidce, or pigeons, including doves and wild 

 pigeons. 



Among the insectivorous birds, the federal law makes 

 an exception of the bobolink, declaring an open season on 

 it, thereby rendering it also a game bird, but the treaty 

 does not recognize it as such. 



To make the list of generally accepted game birds 

 complete, the non-migratory species should be added so as 

 to include the wild turkey, the various grouse, bob-white, 

 prairie chickens, pheasant, and numerous species of quail. 



If we should add all the species that have ever been 

 considered game by any state legislature or by sportsmen 

 in any part of the country, we should have to include 

 blackbirds, bitterns, herons, grebes, gulls, terns, flickers, 

 meadow larks, robins and many others. But we shall 

 confine ourselves to those more generally recognized and 

 analyze the reasons for so determining them. 



When the laws of Italy permit the killing of all species 

 of birds during the migrating seasons they define, thereby, 

 a game bird as any bird large enough to eat, and the line 

 is not drawn at sparrows and larks, for even the little 

 warblers fall before the guns. When our forefathers had 

 just settled this country, on the other hand, and powder 

 was scarce, hardly any bird, except the turkey, was large 

 enough or good enough to merit the cost of ammunition. 

 During some recent explorations in South America, where 

 true game birds are scarce, the author, on the contrary, 

 sometimes descended to shooting toucans, or even troo- 

 pials, and made his own definition of game bird according 

 to the needs of the camp and the resources of the forest. 

 But to-day, in civilized United States, we must look 

 further than this food requisite when we are writing 

 our definition. 



According to Webster a game bird is a bird pursued 

 by sportsmen, and a sportsman is one who is skilled in 



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