BULLETIN NUMBER FOUR 143 



unlimited. There now are thousands of localities in which 

 there is no hunting, whatsoever; and such areas are on 

 the increase. 



5. A spring-shooting season (to March 31) can not be 

 given to Missouri and the adjacent states, even by act of 

 Congress, without destroying one of the foundation prin- 

 ciples of modern game conservation — no spring shooting — 

 or without creating elsewhere demands for special 

 privileges of the same kind. It is now proven that it can 

 not be given even to March 10, because to do so would mean 

 the destruction of mated birds, on their way to their nesting- 

 grounds, or actually upon those grounds. Such an idea is 

 abhorrent. 



6. If Missouri, Iowa and Illinois get spring shooting, the 

 duck hunters of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other states will quickly demand 

 similar concessions, under penalty of charges of "gross 

 favoritism.'' 



7. The Missouri claimants have failed to state to Con- 

 gress the well-known fact that their dissatisfaction with 

 their fall killings of wild fowl are based upon two suc- 

 cessive years of extreme drought (1913 and 1914), such 

 as may not again occur in a long period! In an autumn 

 of ordinary rainfall, the exceptional conditions which gave 

 rise to the present attack are greatly improved, and better 

 bags of ducks are obtainable. Frequently there are ducks 

 along the Missouri River in January and February, for 

 those who are willing to hunt them where they can be found. 

 (See illustration.) 



THE WILDFOWL SEASON IN AND AROUND 

 MISSOURI. 



In its denunciatory "petition" to Congress, the Missouri 

 enemies of the migratory bird law made this flat assertion : 



"Seasons for hunting migratory birds have been so arranged by the 

 Biological Survey officials that hunters residing in the Middle Western 

 States are authorized to hunt migratory game only during such seasons 



