132 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



delay it received the royal signature. It was rushed back 

 to the British Ambassador, Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, 

 and the final ratifications were exchanged on December 7, 



1916, rendering the treaty fully operative for twenty years. 



The people of the United States will now expect to see 

 the law adequately enforced, through a special enabling act. 

 They are willing to pay all that the enforcement will cost, 

 and if it fails to come, they will demand to know the reason 

 why, and will ask — "Who is to blame?" As sure as two and 

 two make four, the American people are now in no mood 

 to stand any trifling in the enforcement of the terms of that 

 treaty. They will have no such doings as we have had to 

 put up with on account of the weaknesses of the present 

 migratory bird law. 



Incidentally they expect that under the terms of the treaty 

 there will be no spring shooting of migratory birds, no sale 

 of native wild game and no night shooting. They will ex- 

 pect to see the bobolink protected forever after March 4, 



1917, and the extermination of our American cranes brought 

 to an abrupt halt. 



But how about the non-migratory upland game birds, — 

 the grouse, ptarmigan and quail! Alas! They are wholly 

 dependent upon state protection; and in several states that 

 is a broken reed upon which to lean. 



PROGRESS OF THE TREATY IN CANADA. 



In the Agricultural Gazette of Canada, for December, 

 1916, p. 1033, Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt has published, in con- 

 densed form, a statement of occurrences in Canada that led 

 up to the ratification of the treaty. It is as follows : 



"The results of the Federal Migratory Bird Law in the 

 United States indicated the possibilities and served to em- 

 phasize the need of international co-operation. The question 

 of international co-operation was first informally discussed 

 by the writer with the Biological Survey of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture at Washington in Janu- 



