THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 301 
First—A most earnest desire to save from certain depletion and 
threatened annihilation the valuable waterfowl, game and insectivor- 
ous birds which migrate across the United States twice each year. 
Second—To accord the hunters in the various states as nearly 
as possible an equal opportunity of taking migratory waterfowl and 
nomadic game birds. 
Third—To open the seasons during which these birds can be 
legally killed in those months when under normal weather and food 
conditions the largest number of migratory waterfowl and birds so- 
journ in any particular state. , 
Fourth—To absolutely eliminate spring shooting, when migra- 
tory water fowl and birds on the northward migration are journeying 
towards their breeding grounds, thus impelled by the resistless force 
-of nature, to mate, nest and reproduce their species. 
Fifth—To recognize unusual and extraordinary conditions existing 
in a few of the states, without effecting the equity or vested rights 
of the people of the whole country in the migratory wild life. 
Sixth—To submit reasonable, practical, fair and just regulations 
that should invite the support of all true conservationists. 
Seventh—To guarantee not only to the present generation a rea- 
sonable supply of migratory wild life, but to so protect it that it will 
multiply and be handed to future generations as their proper and 
rightful heritage. 
The imperative necessity for the enactment of the federal migra- 
tory bird law is palpable to every thoughtful and discerning mind. 
Migratory wild iife does not even recognize national, to say noth- 
ing of state, lines. The variability of the statutes of the states pro- 
tecting these migrants, the lack of uniformity in these laws, the rapac- 
ity with which the nomadic birds are slaughtered by voracious anni- 
hilators of wild life in many of the states to the detriment of the peo- 
ple at large, compelled the conclusion of Congress that the exigencies 
of the situation demanded federal regulations that would, in reality, 
save the migratory waterfowl and birds from extermination. 
The people of no country have been so abundantly blessed with 
valuable natural resources as ours. 
The American people are notoriously a nation of wasters. Only 
by reason of the fact that their natural resources are fast disappear- 
ing have they been induced to extend even a modicum of conserva- 
tion to these fast-vanishing assets. 
Conservation does not mean the preventing the use of our nat- 
ural resources aS a miser would hoard his gold, but means the wise 
and careful use of our national heritage, taking therefrom only a suf- 
ficient quantity to supply our needs, with the full realization that we 
are trustees for future generations. 
We are convinced that under the operation of this law shooting 
will improve each year. 
The need of the hour has heretofore appeared to be uppermost 
in the minds of the people. They have drawn recklessly on their nat- 
ural inheritance with scarcely a thought of the future. It is a notable 
fact that in our rapacity for slaughter many of the most valuable 
species of game and birds that formerly abounded in this country have 
been annihilated. 
The wild or passenger pigeon that formerly swarmed over Eastern 
North America in countless millions has become extinct... The Ameri- 
