EDITOR'S CORNER. 



A GREAT YEAR FOR GAME LAWS. 



Last winter was the most eventful in 

 the history of the game protective move- 

 ment in this country. More was accom- 

 plished in the enactment of proper laws for 

 the preservation of wild birds and animals 

 than in any previous year in the history of 

 the country. 



Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, 

 Minnesota, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia 

 and Texas have completely reconstructed 

 their game laws. Some of these States 

 have repealed existing statutes for the-pro- 

 tection of game and of song birds, and 

 have enacted complete new codes, from 

 beginning to end, built on thoroughly mod- 

 ern lines. 



New York has lined up with Vermont, 

 New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Wiscon- 

 sin, Minnesota, Utah, Alaska, Manitoba, 

 Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfound- 

 land in prohibiting the spring shooting of 

 wild fowl. 



Nebraska, Texas and Idaho have passed 

 laws during the past winter prohibiting the 

 killing of antelope at any time, thus leaving 

 Wyoming and Washington the only States, 

 having any antelope, in which these ani- 

 mals may be legally killed. 



Arkansas has prohibited the sale of all 

 kinds of game ; Illinois that of wild fowl ; 

 Washington that of rail and plover, and of 

 water fowl with certain reservations. New 

 York has prohibited the ,sale of ruffed 

 grouse and woodcock within the State. - 



Texas and Arkansas have cut off the 

 export of wild fowl, and Indiana, Montana 

 and Tennessee have established additional 

 restrictions on the export of game. Hunt- 

 ing licenses have been established or in- 

 creased in Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Ten- 

 nessee and New Hampshire, and Arkansas 

 now denies non-residents the privilege of 

 hunting there at any time. Several States 

 have fixed a limit as to the number of 

 birds or animals that may be killed in a 

 day or in a season, while others have de- 

 creased the numbers each man may be per- 

 mitted to kill. 



The friends of game protection may 

 therefore justly feel gratified with the re- 

 sults of their work. The sweeping changes 

 and improvements in the game laws are 

 wholly due to the educational work car- 

 ried on by the League of American Sports- 

 men, the Audobon societies, the American 

 Ornithologist's union and Recreation ; and 

 the same great wave of public sentiment on 

 behalf of the wild birds and animals, which 

 has enabled us to secure the enactment of 

 good laws in so many States, will greatly 

 aid us in enforcing the laws. 



GAME BELONGS TO THE STATE. 



One Tom Marshall, of Keithsburg, 111., 

 and 2 Powers brothers, of Decatur, 111., 

 own a tract of marsh land at Crane lake, 

 in that State, which is a natural resort of 

 wild fowl in their migrations North and 

 South. These 3 alleged sportsmen sent a 

 man to their preserve last summer with in- 

 structions to begin dumping corn and other 

 grain about the blinds as soon as the ducks 

 began to come in from the North. This 

 order was carried out and the scheme suc- 

 ceeded so well that the 3 mighty duck 

 butchers went to the marsh the opening 

 day of the season and bagged 800 ducks, 

 shipped them home and then followed the 

 plunder to brag about it. This unparal- 

 leled act of slaughter aroused the ire of 

 nearly every newspaper editor and every 

 decent sportsman in Illinois. Then Mar- 

 shall and the Powers brothers concluded 

 they had made a mistake ; not, perhaps, in 

 slaughtering all the birds they could reach 

 while feeding on the grain, but in boasting 

 of it. So Chauncey M. Powers wrote a 

 long article to a Western sportsman's jour- 

 nal, denying the charge of having killed 800 

 birds, claiming that they had only killed 

 500, and endeavoring to obviate the crime 

 by saying they owned the land, that they had 

 paid out a great deal of money for grain 

 to bait it with, and so they had a right to 

 kill the birds. This defense, however, does 

 not stand. Migratory water fowl do not 

 belong to the man on whose land they hap- 

 pen to alight for rest or feed, even though 

 the owner of the land may pay out $100 a 

 day for corn to bait them with. The ducks 

 belong to the people of the -State, and the 

 man who kills more than his reasonable 

 share of them is a robber. 



This brilliant piece of slaughter on the 

 part of these 3 brutes has had a good ef 

 feet on the people of the entire State of 

 Illinois, and the result will probably be- 

 that a law will be enacted by the Legisla- 

 ture of that State in the near future, limit- 

 ing the number of ducks which any one 

 man may kill in a day to 25. The law 

 should also provide a severe penalty for 

 any man who shoots a wild fowl on or 

 near any piece of land or water where feed 

 has been placed to attract the birds. 



GOVERNOR ODELL CHANGES. 

 Governor Odell has changed ins attitua 

 materially on the subject of game protec- 

 tion. This is probably because he heard 

 something drop, last fall. As I have before 

 stated, he was elected Governor of New 

 York in 1898 by a majority of io8,000 and 



ifa 



