species of Central Europe, and few that travel that 

 Italy is a natural bird-trap for all the migratory 

 route get by. Italy has again and again been vain- 

 ly appealed to by the other countries of Europe to 

 cease the trapping, snaring, shooting, liming and other 

 methods of catching the migrating species that for a sea- 

 son visit that penisula. There have been for a century 

 few edible species that nest and rear their young in Italy 

 as compared with Central and Northern Europe. It is 

 easy to see the temptation our meadow-larks, robins, cat- 

 birds and flickers offer, and how little effort these new 

 citizens in the "Land of the Free" exercise to resist it. 



The weakest link in the chain of protection of game and 

 other natural resources lies in the power of politics to 

 change, at brief intervals, the personnel of those bodies 

 of men who, by knowledge and experience, have come to 

 be of inestimable value to this necessary work. This 

 very year the Governor of a most important State so far 

 undervalued the worth of its conservation machinery 

 as to remove the most effective Commissioner the State 

 has ever had; a man who, when public funds failed, 

 privately supplied the necessary money in large amounts. 

 The functions of the Commission were reduced to only 

 a small section of the State and greatly curtailed in power 

 even there. Over the rest of the State the efficient system 

 of game wardens, men especially trained and instructed 

 in the all year round care of the game and other wild 

 life was abolished and the enforcement of the conserva- 

 tion laws was put into the totally inexperienced hands of 

 the State constabulary; the supporting funds were with- 

 drawn from the State game farms just as they were pay- 

 ing largely, both in material produced and in turning out 

 well trained and efficient men capable of carrying on the 

 work of wise conservation at a time when public interest 

 was at the crest of the wave. It is such lack of apprecia- 

 tion and support as this which goes far toward killing in- 

 terest, for the time at least, in the nation wide effort to 

 preserve for posterity what is left of the once abundant 

 and extraordinarily rich native fauna of this continent. 

 And the time has come when even a temporary relaxa- 

 tion in so important a plan may mean the total loss of all 

 that has been done. Some States have no organized 

 State service, notably North Carolina, Florida and Missis- 

 sippi, and some authorize the issue of almost unlimited 

 hunting licenses, allowing the killing of more game than 

 actually exists in the State. At large, however, the 

 tendency seems to be ever toward the wise and proper 



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