38 



First, we must stop All Spring and Summer Shooting. 



Evidently it is most important to allow all birds to breed unmolested. 

 Bobolinks, blackbirds and robins which are protected on their northern 

 breeding grounds maintain their numbers well, though slain in great 

 numbers during the migrations in the south. If the people of New 

 England are not to lose their supply of pond and river ducks, these 

 ducks must be i^rotected throughout the spring migrations and dur- 

 ing the breeding season in these States as well as in Canada. Experience 

 shows that in those months when the shooting of any species is allowed 

 all edible ducks will be shot. Let the shooting of all wild fowl stop 

 with the first day of January; let our rivers, shores and bays be free 

 from shooting from January first to September first, and in time 

 wood duck, black duck, teal, loons, Canada geese ancl other species 

 may come back to our streams, ponds and shores, and breed as they 

 did long ago. Teal once bred as far south as Long Island. Canada 

 geese nested in this State, and even as far south as New Mexico. 

 Now they have been driven north, beyond the borders of the United 

 States. 



The mere presence of man distm'bs the birds very little, v/here no 

 shooting is allowed. This has been proved in many cases where the 

 wildest of wild fowl have become very tame in localities where they 

 Avere unmolested. Since spring duck shooting was stopped by law in 

 New York State the black ducks have bred in considerable numbers 

 on Fisher's Island. New York and Connecticut have already passed 

 laws which establish the beginning of the close season for wild ducks 

 on January 1. New Hampshire takes February 1 as her date, except in 

 one county, and a considerable number of other States ancl provinces 

 of North America are already in advance of IMassachusetts in this 

 matter. 



A law should be enacted here forbidding the taking or killing of all 

 wild fowl and shore birds between the first day of January and the 

 first day of September, in order that the birds may be absolutely 

 undisturbed during that season and that some of them may breed 

 here unmolested. Wherever such a law has been passed and enforced 

 in a single State the effect has been beneficial almost immediately, 

 and the birds which have been driven out have come back, bred and 

 increased rapidly. 



A Resident Hunting License. 



A law reciuiring a one-dollar license fee of all resident hunters is 

 now an absolute necessity. Unless such a law is passed the non- 

 resident license law will remain a dead letter, for unless all hunters 

 are licensed it is difficult, if not impossible, for the officers in the 

 field to identify non-residents of the State. A resident license law, 

 which giA'es to the hunter no privilege he does not now possess and 

 gives to the landowner the right to examine the licenses of all hunters 

 who are found upon his land, would furnish money for the protection 

 and propagation of game, and would largely do away with a class of 

 irresponsible trespassing hunters that is now a source of much irrita- 

 tion and injury to the farming population. Such laAvs are not ex- 

 periments. They originated in the agricultural States of the middle 

 west, and have given good results in the protection of birds and game 

 and the safeguarding of rural property. 



Wherever the agricultural population can be brought to favor and 

 respect such laws they will prove an unqualified success. 



