HISTORY. 13 



A good beginning* has already been made toward securing the 

 general adoption of a uniform definition of game birds. The defini- 

 tion proposed by the American Ornithologists' Union, which restricts 

 the term to four easily recognized groups, has now been accepted by 

 the District of Columbia and ten States — Maine, New Hampshire, 

 Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Wisconsin, and Wyoming. It has been slightly modified by adding 

 reedbirds and blackbirds to the list of species in the District of 

 Columbia, reedbirds to the New Jersey list, and doyes to the Florida 

 and Illinois lists. 



HISTORY. 



Laws relating to game in America date back almost to the first 

 settlement of the colonies. One of the earliest is found in the Massa- 

 chusetts Bay colonial ordinance of 1641, as amended in 1617, which 

 provides that "for great ponds lying in common, though within the 

 bounds of some town, it shall be free for any man to fish and fowl there, 

 and may pass and repass on foot through any man's property for that 

 end, so that they trespass not upon any man's corn or meadow. " This 

 law was in force in the whole Colony of Massachusetts, which at that 

 time included much of the territory now covered by the State of Maine. 

 It has been the basis of several decisions rendered in recent j^ears by the 

 Maine courts, which have held that anyone ma}^ go to great ponds on 

 foot through uninclosed woodlands, but may not cross tillage or mowing 

 land; that a great pond is one containing more than 10 acres, ^ and that 

 such ponds belong to the State. ^ As early as 1699 Virginia passed an 

 act (II William III) prohibiting the killing of deer between January 

 and Jul}^ under a penalt}^ of 500 pounds of tobacco. Maryland fol- 

 lowed in 1730 with a provision prohibiting "any person (Indians in 

 amity with us excepted), between January first and July last, to kill 

 any deer under the penalty of 100 pounds of tobacco;'' and South 

 Carolina, in 1769, prohibited killing of deer during the same period 

 under a penalty of 10 shillings proclamation mone}^ Both the Mary- 

 land and South Carolina acts prohibited night hunting with fire light, 

 as did also the early statutes of Mississippi Territory.^ The earliest 

 game laws in Kentucky were passed in 1775, and their author was 

 Daniel Boone; the earliest in New York in 1791.^' The New York law 

 fixed a penalty of 20 shillings for killing heath hen, partridge, quail, 

 or woodcock on Long Island or in the city and county of New York. 



In the nineteenth century game laws multiplied rapidly. In 1861 

 they were in force in eighteen States and the District of Columbia, in 

 1874 in twenty-four, and during the last quarter of the century they 



1 Auburn v. Water Power Co., 90 Me. 576. '' 86 Me. 319. 



^ Whitehead, ' Game Laws ' in Hunting in Many Lands, p. 364, 1895. 



