T^f Game Breeder 



Published Monthly. Enteied as second-class matter. Juiy g, 1915, at the Post Office, New York City, 



New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 



VOLUME XI 



APRIL, J9J7 



SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 



NUMBER I 



Raiding a Game Farm. 



A most shocking performance- — a 

 game police raid on a Long Island game 

 farm — was reported recently in the daily- 

 papers. 



No doubt the police were within their 

 rights ; no doubt it is an absurd crime to 

 take birds for propagation in New York. 

 It must be humiliating, however, to an 

 intelligent State game officer to see his 

 police raid a private farm because the 

 employes were unaware that it is crimi- 

 nal in New York to take a few birds for 

 breeding purposes, or, possibly, to even 

 catch the ducks bred and owned by the 

 farmer. 



It is legal to shoot and entirely destroy 

 hundreds of ducks during the open sea- 

 son; it is illegal to take even a small 

 number for breeding purposes. Often 

 we have said this absurd law should be 

 amended so as to encourage and not 

 prevent the production of wild fowl. 



P. S. — It is reported $15,000 was paid 

 to settle, which is just $14,999.75 too 

 much. 



More Freedom. 



Often the English papers and maga- 

 zines, after their editors have read about 

 an absurd arrest under the American 

 game laws, point with derision to the, 

 methods in vogue in "the land of the 

 free." They seem to delight in the 

 quotation. 



In every civilized country, excepting 

 in America, it is legal to take wild fowl 

 on public waters and to sell them as 

 food just as fish are taken in public 

 waters and sold as food. Granting there 



is a sentiment against this, we insist there 

 should be no objection to taking birds for 

 propagation. 



In all civilized countries, excepting in 

 America, it is legal to take wild fowl 

 alive for breeding purposes and it is 

 not at all strange that gamekeepers who 

 have heard of "The land of the free" 

 should, imagine they had the same free- 

 dom in America which they enjoyed at 

 home. It is not strange where they are 

 employed to rear game birds that they 

 should take up their own fowl and also 

 a few migrants to help out the breed- 

 ing operations. We appreciate their 

 amazement that such transactions should 

 be placed on the same basis as real crimes, 

 murder, theft, burglary, etc. People 

 who observe such performances of the 

 game police have ceased to wonder why 

 we have no game to eat and very little 

 to look at, in many states. 



Uniformity of Criminal Laws. 



Blackstone and all the legal writers 

 since the date of his famous commen- 

 taries have said that criminal laws should 

 be uniform. It certainly is evident that 

 any transaction should not be criminal in 

 one place and not in another. No one 

 thought of Mr. Mcllhenny as a bad 

 criminal when he sent his story to The 

 Game Breeder about trapping the same 

 ducks twice in Louisiana; the second 

 time after they had returned from Lake 

 Geneva, Wisconsin, where he had sent 

 them to a Chicago friend who is a game 

 breeder. Why should we think of the 

 Long Island farmer, recently raided, as 

 a criminal? Every one we have heard 



