144 



Bird - Lore 



enforcement was secured. The protection- 

 ists rallied in 1905 and prevented the re- 

 peal of the non-marketing and non-trans- 

 portation clause, drivingthe market hunters' 

 lobby out of the field, and immediately 

 commenced distributing literature looking 

 to the reenactment of the law, which would 

 have expired this year by limitation, and 

 the enactment of the game-warden bill, the 

 efforts of those seeking protection having 

 been blessed with success almost to the ex- 

 tent of the desire of those who sought to 

 afford protection to the wild birds and the 

 wild animals. 



It is true that we did not get all that we 

 asked for, because the Legislature refused to 

 exact a license fee on the resident gunners, 

 placing the expense of the warden system 

 entirely upon the non-resident gunners, which 

 will reduce the funds for game protection fully 

 60 per cent. The law will be new, and the 

 means of enforcing it insufficiently organ- 

 ized, and it is likely that a great many non- 

 residents will enter Texas, take game and 

 get out again without paying a cent. If so, 

 the fund will still afford enough for a com- 

 mencement, and as it is pretty certain that 

 legislation in the future will continue pro- 

 gressive, and that the warden system will 

 be improved with each succeeding legisla- 

 ture, we may congratulate ourselves that we 

 have achieved something which will, in the 

 end, result in an ideal condition in the 

 Lone Star State. 



Another matter which we regret is that 

 the Legislature refused to reenact the sec- 

 tion of the bird and game law which per- 

 mitted of the taking of wild birds and wild 

 animals for scientific purposes. That entire 

 section was eliminated, and the consequence 

 is that the Bureau of Biological Survey 

 can not, after next July, send its experts into 

 the state for collecting material and secur- 

 ing data for bulletins, which have in the 

 past proved so valuable to the farmers and 

 the people generally. 



We shall strive hard to educate the peo- 

 ple sufficiently to induce them to insist that 

 their representatives and senators at the next 

 Legislature amend the bill, so that scientific 

 inquiry may be continued by the Biological 

 Survey. The issuing of certificates for the 



taking of birds for scientific purposes, as 

 permitted by the old law, had been so 

 shamefully abused that it was impossible 

 to secure an exception in favor of the Fed- 

 eral Government in that respect. We tried 

 hard, but we failed and we regret it. The 

 Biological Survey had undertaken one par- 

 ticular work which was of inestimable value 

 to the South. Its experts had already ascer- 

 tained that forty-two birds were destroyers 

 of boll weevil, and the investigations in the 

 cotton fields are still in progress. The Au- 

 dubon Society has been informed by the ex- 

 perts sent here by the Government that 

 much important work can be accomplished 

 before the certificates issued to them under 

 the old law expire, and that the interval 

 will be short in which the work must be 

 suspended. We have no doubt that the 

 next Legislature will amend the law, so as 

 to allow that inestimable service to continue 

 until it shall be demonstrated that the only 

 way to eradicate the cotton-boll weevil and 

 all other pernicious insects is to protect the 

 birds, so that they can increase and multiply 

 and carry out the mission for which they 

 were created. — M. B. Davis. 



How very necessary drastic game laws 

 and efficient means for their enforcement are 

 in Texas is forcefully portrayed in the fol- 

 lowing communication from one of the best 

 friends the National Association has: 



"In the second column of page 56 of the 

 January-February Bird-Lore is an account 

 of the exterminating slaughter of wild fowl 

 by Texas market-hunters. 



"It must stir every bird-lover and every 

 real sportsman to protest. It recalls my own 

 observations there eight or ten years ago at 



, about forty miles north of on 



the coast. It was then a famous place for 

 Ducks, Brant, Geese and Snipe. It was an 

 upland, rising but a few feet above great 

 stretches of marshes — the latter an ideal 

 winter home for such birds. 



"Until I went there, I never had an ade- 

 quate conception of what it was to be in a 

 place where such birds were plentiful. Mal- 

 lards, Pintails and Teal were most sought 

 for by the market-hunters. My guide, the 



second winter, was named . He told 



me that the Mallards had grown so scarce 



