GAME CLUBS, PARKS, AND PRESERVES 35 



not be enacted. The game-laws being therefore State 

 laws, there is a deplorable lack of uniformity. New 

 England awakens to the fact that the magnificent wood- 

 cock is a vanishing bird, and stops the summer shoot- 

 ing ; but the birds, more tame on that account, fall an 

 easy prey to the market-gunners, who, in most of the 

 Southern States, may shoot them after they have 

 paired in the spring. A State park for ducks in Da- 

 kota would be of little benefit to the birds without 

 similar refuges in Tennessee and Arkansas and on the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



While there is a legal difficulty in the way of uni- 

 form national laws to preserve the game, no such dif- 

 ficulty appears to prevent the creation of the national 

 game-preserves. The United States has its post- 

 offices and public buildings in all the States of the 

 Union. Its jurisdiction over the land on which they 

 stand is exclusive. The United States has its park in 

 Wyoming, and it is a source of pride and profit to the 

 State. When the National Government proposes to 

 establish a marine hospital in one of the States, the 

 Governor of the State is asked to have the necessary 

 legislation passed ceding the jurisdiction of his State 

 in the property to the National Government. A short 

 bill is prepared at the suggestion of the Governor, and 

 is promptly passed by the State to be benefited. I 

 introduced such a bill at the request of the Governor 

 in the Assembly of Ohio, and it passed the same day 

 under a suspension of the rules. Bills ceding the State 

 jurisdiction over game-refuges would, no doubt, pass 

 in the same way. 



Again, the control of the game-preserves by the 



