202 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



May 1. — The state of Mississippi enacted a new law, in 2 5 sections, 

 for the conservation and protection of wild birds and wild ani- 

 mals and fish. It provides for the establishment of a depart- 

 ment of game and fish; for the appointment and subsequent 

 election of a State Game and Fish Commissioner; for the cre- 

 ation of a game and fish protection fund; for the appointment 

 of game wardens; for the more thorough protection of birds of 

 all kinds, and for a tax on dogs. This act is of far-reaching im- 

 portance to the state of Mississippi, and corrects many short- 

 comings that previously had existed in the statutes of that state. 

 To Hon. W. I. Speairs, Representative from Marshall County, 

 very great credit is due for the enactment of the new law. Mr. 

 Z. A. Brantley, a lawyer, was appointed State Game and Fish 

 Commissioner. 



May 15. — Governor Charles S. Whitman vetoed the Kasson bill 

 (Assembly 2,067), permitting the killing of female deer in the 

 Adirondacks (1 deer regardless of sex), in the following 

 opinion: 



"No person can conceive of a surer way of exterminating 

 deer than that provided under the proposed bill which permits 

 the killing of the breeders. I believe that the genuine sports- 

 men of the state are in favor of the retention, without change, 

 of the present so-called 'buck law.' 



"In eighteen states, including New York, the killing of 

 female deer is prohibited by law. For New York to step out of 

 this column of states would, in my judgment, be a long step 

 backward in the matter of conservation, and I believe that 

 this state cannot afford to offer such an example as this to the 

 world. 



"The number of hunting fatalities in this state is con- 

 siderably lower than in states without such a law as the pres- 

 ent one, the theory being that a hunter who has to look care- 

 fully enough to ascertain whether the animal at which he is 

 about to fire has horns is not likely to mistake another hunter 

 for a deer." 



May 20. — Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur, State Ornithologist of Louisi- 

 ana, in company with Edward Butler and John M. Dudley, dis- 

 covered a large, hitherto unknown egret and heron rookery 

 near Jackson, La. The discovery was made while the party 

 was on a tour of inspection for the purpose of locating possible 

 sites for interior bird refuges to be taken over by the state. 

 The rookery was hidden in a c> press brake of between 20 and 30 

 acres, and was so surrounded by matted "cut grass" as to be 

 seemingly impenetrable. Concerning it, Mr. Arthur officially 

 reported that "the heronry has, at the very lowest estimate, ten 

 or fifteen thousand herons nesting there. . . . The nesting 

 birds included little blue herons, snowy herons, American 

 egrets, great blue herons, Louisiana herons and little green 

 herons. The most astonishing thing was the observance of a 

 great white heron and another of a species known as Wuerd- 

 mann's heron. . . Last year the great white heron was re- 

 ported by conservation agents as having been seen on the wild 

 life refuges along the Gulf of Mexico, but the observance in 

 East Feliciana is the first authentic record." 



