GAME-LAWS 277 



ing farms, and selects localities to act as refuges 

 for game, which, however, can only be taken over 

 as such by state legislation. 



5 

 Federal Laws 



The Lacey Act, the federal Migratory Bird Law, 

 and the Migratory Bird Treaty have been men- 

 tioned several times in these pages without any 

 specific record of their making. The first was 

 introduced into Congress by John F. Lacey in 

 1900 as an attempt to stop the slaughter of game- 

 birds which was then going on at a great rate 

 throughout the United States. The States had 

 claimed all the birds that lived in or passed 

 through their territories, and were doing little 

 or nothing to prevent their extermination. Pas- 

 senger pigeons were gone, the heath hen was gone, 

 prairie chickens were going, turkeys were disap- 

 pearing, and quail had been entirely eliminated 

 from some States. Soon all game-birds would 

 be memories of the past. Non-game birds also 

 were suffering from the depredations of plum- 

 age hunters, and they too would soon be effaced. 



The Lacey Act, working through the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission, merely prohibited the 

 transportation by any common carrier of any bird 

 or part thereof not specially listed in the act. 

 Henceforth no plumage of wild birds could be 



