58 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



bama, Georgia, Texas, the Carolinas and Florida to say 

 about those votes to destroy the only law that ever can or 

 ever will protect our insectivorous birds in the South? 



The above result was not achieved without the public 

 use of a certain amount of plain language in the statement 

 of indisputable facts. Some of those facts, as set forth by 

 Mr. Hornaday, bore rather heavily upon the constituents 

 of Senator Reed, and also upon the Senator himself. This 

 caused the Senator from Kansas City to take great um- 

 brage at Mr. Hornaday, and to indulge in some very un- 

 parliamentary and undignified expressions. On May 23, 

 the Senator went so far as to consume about two hours of 

 the time of the chief legislative body of the nation in an 

 elaborate denunciation of the author of 'Two Years in the 

 Jungle," because that author had once in the jungles of 

 the Far East collected many skins and skeletons of mam- 

 mals, birds, reptiles and fishes, for American museums of 

 natural history. At the close of that tiresome harangue, 

 of mingled vituperation and bathos, the Senator withdrew 

 the dilatory motion which he had made as an excuse for his 

 "speech." 



Later on, under the title "The Federal Migratory Bird 

 Law," those ten pages of "remarks" were reprinted at 

 Government expense, probably to the number of 5,000 or 

 more, and at public expense circulated by Senator Reed 

 as a "speech." The full text may be found in the Congres- 

 sional Record for May 23, 1914, pages 9878 to 9882. 



This bit of history is worth recording, partly because it 

 reveals the character of the opposition to the national mi- 

 gratory bird law, and also because of the fact that this 

 violent and well-organized spring-shooting opposition is 

 certain to appear in the future whenever the Senate chooses 

 to consider any measure for the better protection of our 

 game birds. The Kansas City spring-shooters are quite de- 

 termined to have their way ; and they and Senator Reed are 

 ready to destroy completely a bird law that is of enormous 

 economic value to the market-baskets and dinner-pails of 

 the American people, if thereby they can only secure the 



