30 BULLETIN 1049, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sink boxes and decoys and requiring licenses for the use of such 

 paraphernalia, and providing a special warden system. The pro- 

 ceeds from licenses are applied to the payment of salaries of the 

 wardens, who are appointed directly by the governor and are more 

 or less independent of the State warden. 



The Pennsylvania system of preserves is unique; it consists of a 

 number of small irregular areas on State lands, each not more than 

 9 miles in circumference and marked by a single wire fastened to the 

 trees. No hunting is allowed within these areas and no one is per- 

 mitted to enter the inclosures during the open season. Deer when 

 pursued outside thus find a real refuge within the inclosure. At 

 least 30 or more such refuges have thus far been established. 



After an experience of several years the Pennsylvania refuges 

 have proved very effective in maintaining and increasing the supply 

 of deer in their vicinity. The State has 1,029,023 acres of State 

 forests, which in effect furnish public camping and hunting grounds, 

 much as the Adirondack Forest does in New York, with the difference 

 that Pennsylvania is actively stocking and increasing the supply 

 of deer through the medium of these small refuges, whereas New 

 York relies entirely on regulating the hunting and on the natural 

 increase of the stock, without resorting either to restocking or to 

 maintaining natural refuges. 



The most recent project of this kind is the Pass a Loutre public 

 shooting grounds located in southern Louisiana at the mouth of the 

 Mississippi Eiver. This great waterfowl resort, comprising some 

 60,000 acres between Pass a Loutre and South Pass, is within easy 

 reach of New Orleans and was opened to the public on November 1, 

 1921. It provides a place where 100 sportsmen may hunt at one time 

 and that may be enjoyed by the public at a minimum of expense. 

 Here the hunter who can not afford to belong to an exclusive duck- 

 hunting club may enjoy the same advantages of wild-fowl shooting as 

 a club member merely at the cost of his hunting license, a permit from 

 the conservation commission, and his actual expenses while shooting 

 on the reservation. The principal kinds of ducks to be found during 

 the season are mallards, pintails, spoonbills, gray ducks, canvas-backs, 

 redheads, teal, and lesser scaups. In creating this reservation Louisi- 

 ana has set an example, which will doubtless be followed by other 

 States, in utilizing and developing some of her marshlands for the 

 benefit of the public rather than permitting them to pass into private 

 ownership or allowing the shooting rights to be monopolized by a 

 few private clubs. 



Several years ago Michigan enacted a measure providing hunting 

 grounds on Saginaw Bay, but nothing practical seems to have been 

 accomplished by this legislation. A former game commissioner of 

 Utah advocated a provision for public hunting grounds on lands in 



