HISTORY. 13 
A good beginning has already been made toward securing the 
genei*al adoption of a uniform definition of game birds. The defini- 
tion proposed by the American Ornithologists' Union, which restricts 
the term to four easih' recognized groups, has now been accepted by 
the District of Columbia and ten States — Maine, New Hampshire, 
Connecticut, New Jersey. Delaware. Florida. Indiana. Illinois, 
Wisconsin, and Wyoming. It has been slighth' modified by adding 
reedbirds and blackbirds to the list of species in the District of 
Columbia, reedbirds to the New Jerse}^ list, and doves to the Florida 
and Illinois lists. 
HISTORY. 
Laws relating to game in America date back almost to the first 
settlement of the colonies. One of the earliest is found in the Massa- 
chusetts BvLY colonial ordinance of 1641, as amended in 1647. which 
provides that ''for great ponds lying in common, though within the 
bounds of some town, it shall be free for any man to fish and fowl there, 
and may pass and repass on foot through any man's property for that 
end, so that they trespass not upon an}' man's corn or meadow." This 
law was in force in the whole Colony of Massachusetts, which at that 
time included much of the territory now covered by the State of Maine. 
It has been the ba«is of several decisions rendered in recent 3'ears b}' the 
]Maine courts, which have held that anyone may go to great ponds on 
foot through uninclosed woodlands, but may not cross tillage or mowing 
land; that a great pond is one containing more than 10 acres, ^ and that 
such ponds belong to the State. ^ As earlv as 1699 Virginia passed an 
act (II William III) prohibiting the killing of deer between January 
and July under a penalty of 500 pounds of tobacco. ^larvland fol- 
lowed in 1730 with a provision prohibiting "any person (Indians in 
amity with us excepted), between January first and July last, to kill 
any deer under the penalty of 400 pounds of tobacco:" and South 
Carolina, in 1769, prohibited killing of deer during the same period 
under a penalty of 40 shillings proclamation money. Both the Mary- 
land and South Carolina acts prohibited night hunting with fire light, 
as did also the early statutes of Mississippi Territory.^ The earliest, 
game laws in Kentucky were passed in 1775, and their author was 
Daniel Boone: the earliest in New York in 1791.'' The New York law 
fixed a penalty- of :^0 shillings for killing heath hen. partridge, quail, 
or woodcock on Long Island or in the city and county of New York. 
In the nineteenth century game laws multiplied rapidly. In 1864 
they were in force in eighteen States and the District of Columbia, in 
1874 in twentj'-four, and during the last quarter of the century they 
^ Aubum V. Water Power Co., 90 Me. 576. ^ 86 Me. 319. 
' Whitehead, ' Game Laws ' in Hunting in [Many Lands, p. 364, 1895. 
