GAME REFUGES. 25 



if he goes on. Now, the Federal Government, the courts have said, 

 may prescribe the punishment for trespass on or the injury of its 

 property, hut when the Federal Government provides punishment 

 for the killing of game, it is not providing a punishment for the pro- 

 tection of its property, it is attempting to legislate touching property 

 of the people under the control of the State. 



Mr. Jacoway. Is it your position that the Federal Government 

 has at all times the right to exercise this jurisdiction claimed by you, 

 but that it is held in abeyance until it sees proper to exercise it? 



Mr. Williams. Exactly; and until Congress acts, of course, a man 

 may go upon the public land and hunt just as they used to go on the 

 public land and graze their cattle until Congress said, "You must 

 not do it, unless you comply with the regulations of the Secretary." 



Mr. Jacoway. In the grazing proposition the Government owned 

 the land and the grass ? 



Mr. Williams. Yes, sir. 



Air. Jacoway. But in this case it does not own the wild game ? 



Mr. Williams. I will not say that it does not own the wild migra- 

 tory game, for this reason: As I tell you, that question is involved 

 in the migratory-bird law at the present time, and whatever my 

 individual opinion may be about that, I can say to you that there 

 are a great many able lawyers all over this country who are of the 

 opinion that the title to the wild migratory game and birds is in the 

 United States, i So that is not a foreclosed question, and the Supreme 

 Court evidently is very much in doubt About the question, because, 

 after considering the matter for about five months, they have restored 

 the case to the docket for reargument. 



Mr. Reilly. Do you not think you should qualify that statement 

 by stating that the Government has absolute and complete control 

 over the game within its limits ? 



Mr. Williams. Every general statement necessarily must be some- 

 what qualified, because there are always other considerations 



Mr. Reilly (interposing). Is it not true that the State has abso- 

 lute control of the game within its own limits, and can legislate with 

 regard to the game within its own territory % 



Mr. Williams. That is the proposition, precisely, and that is what 

 I mean to say. Of course, I do not mean to say that the right exists 

 to permit B to go upon a private individual's land and hunt on that 

 land whenever he sees fit, because the private individual may say he 

 will not have B hunt on his land at all. I think that while the 

 United States may exclude people from its land for the purpose of 

 hunting game it can not confer upon an individual the right to hunt 

 upon those lands at any time or in any manner prohibited by State 

 law. The regulations issued under the statute of 1906, which I read 

 to you, make it an offense to kill birds or take their eggs on Federal 

 bird preserves created by Executive order. In that act there is a 

 provision that the Secretary of Agriculture may make rules and regu- 

 lations for the administration of those preserves, and the department 

 has made a regulation permitting the agents of the Department of 

 Agriculture, and collaborators with the Department of Agriculture, 

 to take birds on these preserves for the uses of the department, for 

 scientific purposes, consistent with the laws of the State in which the 

 preserve is situated. In other words, the Secretary does not claim 

 that he has any right to say that a man may go upon a Federal bird 



