AMERICAN GAME PROTECTION. 17 



WARDEN SERVICE. 



In early da^s the enforcement of the game law was left to local 

 peace officers or intrusted to certain general officers. Thus New 

 York as late as 1820 intrusted the duties of suing for penalties under 

 the game law to overseers of the poor. In recent years, however, 

 special officers, known as wardens or protectors, have been found 

 necessary. The earliest officers of this kind seem to have been the 

 deer wardens of Massachusetts, 1739, and New Hampshire, 1741, 

 afterwards known as deer reeves in Massachusetts, 1764. Later 

 these were followed by the moose wardens in Maine, in 1852. 

 Shortly after the establishment of fish commissions their duties 

 were extended to include game (beginning in California and New 

 Hampshire in 1878), and a few years later the first appointments 

 of salaried State game wardens were made in Michigan, Minnesota, 

 and Wisconsin in 1887. This system has spread until at the present 

 time it is in force in 41 States. 



GAME-PROTECTION FUNDS. 



In order to meet the expenses incident to game protection, and 

 particularly to warden service, special funds were found necessary, 

 and such funds were often set aside as game-protection funds. Thus 

 the laws of several states contain the provision that the money re- 

 ceived from licenses and fines shall form a game-protection fund and 

 be applied to the payment of wardens. With the adoption of license 

 systems these funds have assumed greater importance and are often of 

 considerable size, amounting in several States in recent years to up- 

 wards of $100,000 per annum. The possession of such funds and the 

 ease with which they may be collected have proved a source of weak- 

 ness as well as strength to the game-warden departments, and there 

 has been a tendency recently toward a reaction in requiring a direct 

 appropriation by the legislature before any part of such funds can 

 be applied to game protection. Acts have also been passed trans- 

 ferring to the State treasury or applying to other purposes what is 

 regarded as a surplus. 



FAILURE OF LEGISLATION TO SAVE THE BUFFALO AND WILD PIGEON. 



The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1868 determined 

 the fate of the buffalo. The species at that time was distributed 

 chiefly on the Great Plains region between the Missouri River and 

 the Rocky Mountains, although a few individuals may have ranged 

 west of the mountains. The only State which afforded the species 

 any protection was Idaho. The building of the railroad not only 

 divided the buffalo into two great herds, a northern and a southern, 

 but gave ready access to the hunting grounds and afforded easy 

 20201°— Bull. 41—12 3 



