ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 13 



What about the Biological Survey? 



While its investigators were in the field collecting data about the 

 breeding season in the middle western states, the Survey seemed to wabble 

 a little on the subject of Spring shooting. Under date of May 13 it sent 

 out "Proposed Regulations for the Protection of Migratory Birds." These 

 were "made public for examination and consideration before final adop- 

 tion." One of these regulations had a bearing on the controversy then 

 on in the Senate. For the middle west area, it provided an open season 

 for shooting waterfowl between September 15 and November 16 and 

 another between February 9, and March 11. It may be said in passing 

 that this concession to those who favored Spring shooting was ungratefully 

 received by them and that it met with determined opposition by those 

 favoring the bill and opposed to all Spring shooting. 



Reports from the Field. 



The investigators of the Survey had gone out early into the field and 

 the reports that came in developed the important fact that wild fowl were 

 actually breeding in Kansas and Missouri in the early days of March. One 

 of the investigators, W. F. Bancroft, was a visitor in Atchinson, Kansas, on 

 March 14th and accompanied Eugene A. Howe, Editor of the Atchinson 

 Globe, on a trip to several of the Missouri lakes in that vicinity. They 

 found as reported by Mr. Howe that eighty per cent of the ducks common 

 to that section from the blue winged teal to red heads and mallards were 

 mated. Mr. Howe has personally observed wild mallards mating the first 

 week in February. 



Dr. Geo. W. Field of Boston, visited during June, many points in Kan- 

 sas and Missouri and from his observations concluded that the main hatch- 

 ing periods during 1916 for pintails and both greenhead and dusky mal- 

 lards, which breed earliest, was the first week in May, and egglaying must 

 have begun about March 15. As late as June 20th many blue-winged teal 

 were still incubating. Between these dates "broad bills" and gad walls 

 breed abundantly and redheads, canvas-backs, ruddies, wood ducks, hooded 

 mergansers, and green-winged teal occasionally. These observations, quite 

 at variance with the statements of the League of Sportsmen previously 

 quoted, make the demand for an open season for wild fowl in March seem 

 entirely unreasonable. 



Final Regulations of the Biological Survev. 



The outcome so far as the Biological Survey is concerned is that the 

 proposed regulations issued on May 13, were withdrawn and the final regu- 

 lations issued August 21, provide a closed season for waterfowl in fifteen 

 states between January first and September fifteenth, next following. 

 Among these fifteen states are Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska ! 

 All this means that the birds are coming back if — no, there seems to be 

 no if about it. The constitutionality of the Federal Migratory Bird Law 

 seems no longer to be in question since the ratification of the Treaty with 

 Canada — which is another storv. It follows this. 



