24 LEGISLATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 



(Montana), 'any other bird whose habits are not essentially pred- 

 atory upon and destructive of the ag-ri cultural products of man' 

 (West Virginia), 'birds of like nature that promote ag-ricultm-e and 

 horticulture by feeding on noxious worms and insects, or that are 

 attractive in appearance or cheerful in song' (Nebraska). Only one 

 State, South Carolina, distinctly limits the term to 'an3^ bird whose 

 principal food is insects.- 



Probabh" less than two-thirds of the North American birds are, 

 strictly speaking, insectivorous, and a much smaller proportion are 

 properly song birds. Beside the four orders of perching birds (Pas- 

 seres), swifts and hummingbirds (Macrochires), woodpeckers (Pici), 

 and cuckoos (Coccyges), which comprise a little more than 600 species, 

 few groups contain many species which can be considered insectivorous. 

 Even a libeial interpretation of the term excludes more than one-third 

 of the l)irds unless they are protected by some additional clause, such 

 as 'plume birds,' which is adopted in the Florida statute to cover 

 herons, ibises, cranes, and curlews. 



In the report of the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission for 

 1899, some ol)joctions to the indefinite term 'insectivorous' are stated 

 as follows: 



The (iue.'>tion naturally arises a.s to what constitutes an insectivorous bird. Is a 

 bird to he re^'anled as insectivorous whii-h feeils on insects for two or three weeks 

 every year? Under the jirovisions of the present law persons might be prosecuted 

 for killing slutre ])irds, for these feed to a great extent on aquatic insects, and the 

 l)rosecution against a jjcrson for having kille<l ree<lbirds during the open season would 

 result in a conviction, for the reeilbinls destroy insects in large numbers, and the 

 prohibition i>f the law against killing insectivorous birds is certaiidy sweei)ing.' 



Although this is doul>tless an extreme, if not erroneous, interpreta- 

 tion of th<> phrase, it sliows th(» objection to the use of this term unless 

 (jiialitied in some such way as in the South Carolina statute. But the 

 chief ol)jecti<)n is that the definition is vague and instead t)f going too 

 far, does not (jo fur , ikhkj/i, and tiius fails to covei- a hirge numbei- of 

 birds which are as worthy of protection as those which depend mainly 

 on insects for food. 



Inasnuich as game l)irds constitute but a small proportion of the 

 avifauna of any State, it seems more reasonabh^ to enumerate them and 

 extend protection to <ill otJwrx^ as is now the practice in some States 

 (see pj). ()H, (>T, 'S'l). This may b(> done (juite briefly by following the 

 groups or families and orders into which ornithologists combine vari- 

 ous species. Of the 17 orders of North American birds shown in the 

 table on page 25, only 4 (marked with an asterisk) inchule true game 

 l)irdsand l)ut4 others species which are properly insectivoi'ous, so tliat 

 by defining gam(> l)irds, as suggested by the American Ornithologists' 



'See Forest and Stream, LIV, pp. 9-10, January 6, 1900. 



