GAME AS A NATIONAL KESOUECE. 33 



that if owners would forego the privilege of hunting on their own 

 lands the State would post such lands as State game preserves and 

 stock them with game birds. No preserves were established unless 

 agreements could be made with the owners for at least 400 acres of 

 land forming a solid body nor for areas larger than 3,000 acres. In 

 1909 the State legislature passed an act affording a certain measure 

 of protection to these preserves. This law provided : 



That it shall be unlawful for any person in the State of Indiana for and 

 during the term of six (6) years from and after the passage of this act t<> 

 injure, take, kill, expose, or offer for sale, or have in possession, except for 

 breeding purposes, any prairie chicken, any ring-neck Mongolian pheasant 

 * * * or Hungarian partridge ; or to hunt upon any game preserve organ- 

 ized or stocked with any of the above mentioned birds by the commiss'onei- 

 of fisheries and game: Provided, That any landowner living within the terri- 

 tory of the preserve may be permitted to hunt squirrels and rabbits on his 

 own land only. (Laws of 1909, chap. 103, approved Mar. 6, 1909.) 



In 1911 the commissioner referred in the following terms to the 

 experiment of introducing Hungarian partridges, which began in 

 1909, and for which the system of preserves had been partly estab- 

 lished : 



There are now in the state 240 of these preserves, aud they inclose in 

 all something like 1,500,000 acres of protected breeding grounds for game 

 birds. In most of the counties there are as many of them as there ought 

 to be. * * * 



By the first of the year 1910 Mr. Sweeney had established about 170 of these 

 preserves, aud on them he placed some 3,000 pairs of Hungarian partridges. 

 Recent reports from them, with three or four exceptions, have been that the 

 birds have done well during the past season, and that a great many broods 

 have been hatched and reared on them. (Bien. Rept. for 1909-10, pp. 99-100.) 



In March, 1915, this law expired by limitation, and in reviewing 

 its history the commissioner of fisheries and game referred in his 

 report in December, 1916, to the fact that there was at that time no 

 game preserve law in effect. He further stated : 



The provisions of this law were so indefinite and inadequate that the pre- 

 serves established under its provisions were not the success they should have 

 been. In many cases, it is claimed, the owners of the lands which were in- 

 cluded in the preserve used the " State game preserve " signs to keep others 

 out, and made it a private hunting ground. * * * 



A few years ago a large sum of money, approximately $70,000, was expended 

 in the purchase of Hungarian partridges and English ring-neck pheasants, 

 which were distributed throughout the State, most of them being planted on 

 game preserves which were then in existence. To-day very few of these birds 

 are left. They not only failed to increase in number, but those that have 

 survived constitute only a small per cent of the original stock planted. That 

 the experiment was unsuccessful is beyond question. Very little satisfactory 

 information as to why this was so can be obtained. (Bien. Rept., 1914-15, 

 pp. 54-55.) 



