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be stopped eventually. The river ducks should all have as 
much protection in spring as is now given to black duck, 
wood duck and teal; and it would be wise to forbid all 
spring and summer shooting of water-fowl. A moderate 
amount of shooting in the fall, after the birds have bred, 
does not reduce their average numbers perceptibly from 
year to year; but spring shooting tends toward extermi- 
nation. 
When we have done what remains to be done in Massa- 
chusetts, some influence must be brought to bear on other 
States ; for, if the birds are shot on their way north 
through the southern and middle States, and also in Nova 
Scotia and Newfoundland, protection here will have only 
partial results. The Province of Quebec protects shore 
birds in spring in most of her territory; but Nova Scotia 
laws now (1904.) give shore birds, except snipe, no spring 
protection. New Brunswick protects them on a large part of 
her coast. All the New England States excepting Bhode 
Island now prohibit the shooting of shore birds during one 
or more of the spring months, but the laws of the different 
States do not coincide. Massachusetts leads the New Eng- 
land States by protecting practically all shore birds in 
spring. New York protects them in spring and summer. 
New Jersey protects shore birds from January 1 to May 1. 
Maryland and Delaware give them no adequate spring pro- 
tection. Virginia protects most of the shore birds in spring. 
In New Hanover County, North Carolina, shore birds may 
be shot from September 1 to April 1. In South Carolina, 
Georgia and Florida they are practically unprotected. 
If the laws of all these States could be so amended as to 
prevent any shooting of the shore birds from January 1 to 
September 1, we might expect to see a resultant increase 
among those birds which, like the black-bellied plover, 
migrate mainly up and down the coast. Such a law, how- 
ever, would not greatly affect such species as the Eskimo 
curlew, the golden plover and the Bartramian sandpiper 
or upland plover, which migrate north through the in- 
terior, as the abundance of these birds is governed to a 
considerable extent by the amount of spring killing done in 
