248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



mise was made permitting the shooting of sliorc^ birds during 

 the month of Angnst. 



A bill was passed making all pnblic lands bird and game 

 refuges or sanctuaries (Acts of 1U09, chapter 362). 



Recojimendatioks fok Lec^islation for 1910. 



The larger shore birds, such as the curlews, godwits and 

 willets, are now, wdth a single exception, in danger of exter- 

 mination, but there seems to be little hope of securing uni- 

 form legislation adequate for their protection throughout the 

 country, unless the power of making regulations for their 

 conservation can be placed in the hands of the federal au- 

 thorities in the manner proposed by the House bill intro- 

 duced into Congress by the Hon. J. AV. Weeks. In the mean 

 time Massachusetts should extend protection at all times to 

 the smaller sandpipers and plovers, ordinarily called peeps, 

 ring-necks and beach birds. These birds are so small that 

 they are of no more food value than a sparrow. As game 

 they are beneath the notice of the real sportsman. Some of 

 them are valuable as insect destroyers, and they are all beau- 

 tiful, confiding, innocent creatures. They should be left with 

 other little birds to roam our shores, marshes and fields un- 

 molested. As the larger species become rarer the gunner will 

 turn his attention to these. Already their numbers have been 

 greatly reduced, and, if they are to be saved from extermina- 

 tion, protection must be extended to them. 



The close season on the upland plover expires in 1010. 

 The bird is now so rare that this close season should be con- 

 tinued, protecting this bird at all times. 



More reservations for the protection of birds and game 

 are needed. If certain ponds, swamps and marshes in the 

 interior and certain waste lands along the seacoast were set 

 aside as refuges, upon which hunting, shooting and trapping 

 of all useful birds and animals were prohibited for all time, 

 we might at least preserve some useful species of migratory 

 game birds from extinction. Massachusetts ought not bo 

 behind other States in this movement, for there is no State 

 in the Union the population of which has been more destruc- 

 tive to game and birds. 



