CHRONOLOGY AND INDEX OF THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS 

 IN AMERICAN GAME PROTECTION, 1776-1911. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Game protection in the United States has been gradually developed 

 during a period of nearly 300 years and has been marked by an 

 immense volume of legislation. In no other country in the world 

 have laws for the protection of game been passed in such numbers 

 or amended so frequently. Among the characteristic features of 

 American game legislation are the division of birds into three groups — 

 game birds, nongame birds, and noxious species; the restrictions on 

 hunting by nonresidents; the limitations on the quantity of game 

 that may be killed at certain times; the prohibition of export and 

 sale; the system of enforcement by State officers; and the mainte- 

 nance of this system largely by receipts from hunting licenses. 



DEFINITIONS OF GAME. 



The mammals and birds which have been the subject of this 

 extended legislation have varied considerably at different times, as 

 have the definitions of the groups. Frank Forester, writing in 1848, 

 declared: 



Game is an arbitrary term, implying, in its first and most correct sense, those animals, 

 whether of fur or feather, which are the natural pursuit of certain high breeds of dogs. 



Under this heading he included the bison, mountain sheep, 

 antelope, moose, elk, caribou, deer, rabbit, varying hare, black or 

 brown bear, and grizzly bear, and added: 



This is the utmost limit that I can assign to the quadruped game of this country; 

 as I can not lend my humble sanction to the shooting squirrels, racoons, or opossums 

 out of trees, and calling that sportsmanship; any more than I can assent to shooting 

 thrushes, crow blackbirds, pigeons, meadowlarks, and reed-birds, and calling them 

 game. 



Under birds he included wild turkeys, quail, grouse, ptarmigan, 

 coot, rail, plover, snipe, and other bay birds, woodcock, geese, swans, 

 and ducks. (Field Sports in America, I, pp. 21, 23, 26-34.) 



In 1886 the committee on protection of birds of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union prepared a definition of game birds which, 

 with slight modifications, has been generally accepted. This defi- 

 nition was based on natural groups, as follows: 



The following only shall be considered game birds: The Anatidse, commonly 

 known as swans, geese, brant, and river and sea ducks; the Rallidse, commonly known 

 as rails, coots, mudhens, and gallinules; the Limicolse, commonly known as shore 

 birds, plovers, surf birds, snipe, woodcock, sandpipers, tattlers, and curlews; the 



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