HISTOBY OF PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION. 11 



birds: The night or musquito hawk, chimney swallow, barn swallow, martin or swift, 

 whippowil [sic], cuckoo, kingbird or bee martin, woodpecker, claip or high hole, 

 catbird, wren, bluebird, meadow lark, brown thrusher [sic], dove, firebird or sum- 

 mer redbird, hanging bird, ground robin or chewink, bobolink or ricebird, robin, 

 snow or chipping bird, sparrow, Carolina lit [sic], warbler, bat, blackbird, blue jay, 

 and the small owl. 



2. And be it enacted, That every person offending in the premises shall forfeit and 

 pay for each offence the sum of five dollars, to be sued for and recovered in an action 

 of debt by any person who will sue for the same, with cost. 



3. And be it enacted, That any person wilfully destroying the eggs of any of the 

 above-described birds shall be liable to the penalty prescribed in the second section 

 of this act, to be sued for and recovered as therein prescribed. 



Similar acts were passed in 1851 by Vermont, in 1855 by Massachu- 

 setts, and shortly after by other States, until in 1864 they were in force 

 in the District of Columbia and twelve States, comprising all of New 

 England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, and 

 Minnesota. 



These early laws, as exemplified by the New Jersey statute just 

 quoted, enumerated the species to be protected, and extended protec- 

 tion only to 'insectivorous,' 'song,' or 'harmless' birds, as is still 

 done by some of the laws now in force. In 1877, however, Florida 

 went a step further, by enacting special legislation for the preservation 

 of sea birds and plume birds, and in 1891 her example was followed by 

 Texas. Recently a beginning has been made toward preserving birds 

 of prey, or at least discriminating between the useful and injurious 

 species. In 1886 a departure was made by the committee on bird pro- 

 tection of the American Ornithologists' Union, which drafted a bill 

 differing from previous laws by defining game birds and protecting 

 all others (with the exception of a few known to be injurious), thus 

 including not only insectivorous and plume birds, but birds of prey as 

 well. (See p. 48.) This method of defining the species to be protected 

 has now been adopted by several States. It has the advantage of 

 clearness, simplicity, and completeness, which is not the case with laws 

 framed on the old lines. 



During the last three years a few attempts have been made to legis- 

 late against the sale and wearing of feathers of native birds, as the 

 enormous demand for birds for millinery purposes is generally recog- 

 nized as one of the chief causes of bird destruction. In 1897 California 

 declared that every person who shall at any time kill or have in his 

 possession, "except for the purpose of propagation or for educational 

 or scientific purposes, any English skylark, robin, canary, humming- 

 bird, thrush, or mocking-bird, or any part of the skin, shms, or plumage 

 thereof, * * * is guilty of a misdemeanor." 1 In the same year 

 Massachusetts passed a broader law aimed more directly at the trade 

 in feathers, which provided that "whoever has in his possession the 

 body or feathers of any bird whose taking or killing is prohibited by 



1 Penal Code, California, 1897, p. 216. 



