WILD FOWL THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION 171 



gauntlet of guns a thousand miles long. Whenever and wher- 

 ever a duck or goose alights to rest and feed, the guns begin 

 to roar. The more important migration routes, like the 

 Atlantic coast and the Mississippi Valley, literally teem with 

 roaring guns and flying shot, and to-day the wonder is not 

 that the wild fowl have become "so scarce," but rather that 

 so many have escaped slaughter! In view of the enormous 

 annual output of new gunners, guns and ammunition, noth- 

 ing but the strongest kind of public sentiment for bird pro- 

 tection, backed by stringent laws, rigidly enforced, can save 

 the ducks, geese and swans of North America from becoming 

 as extinct as the great auk and the dodo. 



Even prior to 1913 about one-half of the northern states 

 of our country prohibited spring shooting by law, but the re- 

 maining states selfishly and resolutely refused to reform, or 

 to improve their ethics to suit the new conditions. The effect 

 of this condition was that the wild fowl so honorably protected 

 in spring by some states was ruthlessly and meanly slaughtered 

 in spring by the people of the benighted states. 



At last, in 1913, a long-desired measure placing the mi- 

 gratory birds under the strong protecting arm of the Federal 

 Government was enacted into law. On October 1, 1913, the 

 great "federal migratory bird law" went into effect; and one 

 of its leading features provided for a complete stoppage of 

 the shooting of game birds in spring and late winter, every- 

 where in the United States. The demand for this law was 

 so overwhelming that it was passed by both houses of Con- 

 gress with only a slight show of opposition, and even that was 

 based on technical grounds. 



