PART IV.-THE MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY 



THE STORY OF THE MIGRATORY BIRD 

 TREATY WITH CANADA 



WHEN satisfactory enabling acts have been passed, the 

 international treaty with Canada will afford ways and 

 means for the adequate protection of about 1,022 species and 

 sub-species of North America's most valuable birds, from 

 the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the North Pole. 



The long arm and the strong grip of a thoroughly con- 

 stitutional federal act will have about 100 times the dynamic 

 force of the state laws of a number of states that we could 

 name. An inexorable federal law, which hales every of- 

 fender to a strange court, before an unsympathetic judge 

 and a perfectly hopeless foreign jury, is a combination that 

 no law-breaker can make light of, — at least not more than 

 once! In federal cases, the chummy judge and the sympa- 

 thetic jury ready and eager to acquit, are appallingly absent. 



With the passage of an enabling Act to carry out the 

 terms of the treaty, and an annual appropriation of at least 

 $200,000 for enforcement in 48 states, the protection of our 

 best birds becomes a ten times more easy matter than ever 

 it was before this time. The weaknesses of the present mi- 

 gratory law, passed as an unsteady bareback rider upon an 

 agricultural appropriation bill, have many times been point- 

 ed out by the enemies and detractors of the law. In this 

 connection we particularly recall Judge D. C. Beaman, of 

 Denver; Harry Chase, E. T. Grether, A. D. Holthaus and 

 J. H. Aldous. This old law was fatally and exasperatingly 

 defective in not providing authority to search and to arrest, 

 without a warrant, and in other vital points. We knew that 



