CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 
FOR THE PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS IN THE UNITED 
STATES AND CANADA ■ 
[39 Stat 1702] 
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
A PROCLAMATION 
Whereas a convention between the United States of America and the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the protection of migratory birds 
in the United States and Canada was concluded and signed by their respective 
plenipotentiaries at Washington on the 10th day of August, 1910, the original 
of which convention is word for word as follows: 
Whereas many species of birds in the course of their annual migrations 
traverse certain parts of the United States and the Dominion of Canada; and 
Whereas many of these species are of great value as a source of food or 
in destroying insects which are injurious to forests and forage plants on the 
public domain, as well as to agricultural crops, in both the United States 
and Canada, but are nevertheless in danger of extermination through lack of 
adequate protection during the nesting season or while on their way to and 
from their breeding grounds; 
The United States of America and His Majesty the King of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond 
the Seas, Emperor of India, being desirous of saving from indiscriminate 
slaughter and of insuring the preservation of such migratory birds as are 
either useful to man or harmless, have resolved to adopt some uniform system 
of protection which shall effectively accomplish such objects and to the end 
of concluding a convention for this purpose have appointed as their respective 
plenipotentiaries : 
The President of the United States of America, Robert Lansing, Secretary 
of State of the United States; and 
His Britannic Majesty, the Right Hon. Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, G. C. 
V. O., K. C. M. G., etc., His Majesty's ambassador extraordinary and pleni- 
potentiary at Washington ; 
Who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers, 
which were found to be in due and proper form, have agreed to and adopted 
the following articles: 
Article I 
The high contracting powers declare that the migratory birds included in the 
terms of this convention shall be as follows : 
1. Migratory game birds : 
(a) Anatidae or waterfowl, including brant, wild ducks, geese, and swans, 
(&) Gruidae or cranes, including little brown, sandhill, and whooping cranes, 
(o) Rallidae or rails, including coots, gallinules, and sora and other rails. 
(d) Limicolae or shorebirds, including avocets, curlew, dowitchers, godwits, 
knots, oyster catchers, phalaropes, plovers, sandpipers, snipe, stilts, surf birds, 
turnstones, willet, woodcock, and yellowlegs. 
(e) Columbidae or pigeons, Including doves and wild pigeons. 
2. Migratory insectivorous birds: Bobolinks, catbirds, chickadees, cuckoos, 
flickers, flycatchers, grosbeaks, humming birds, kinglets, martins, meadowlarks, 
nighthawks or bull-bats, nut-hatches, orioles, robins, shrikes, swallows, swifts, 
tanagers, titmice, thrushes, vireos, warblers, wax- wings, whippoor wills, wood- 
peckers, and wrens, and all other perching birds which feed entirely or chiefly 
on insects. 
3. Other migratory nongame birds: Auks, auklets, bitterns, fulmars, gannets, 
grebes, guillemots, gulls, herons, jaegers, loons, murres, petrels, pufllns, shear- 
waters, and terns.. 
Article II 
The high contracting powers agree that, as an effective means of preserving 
migratory birds, there shall be established the following close seasons during 
which no hunting shall be done except for scientific or propagating purposes 
under permits issued by proper authorities. 
8 Signed at Washington, Aug. 16, 1916 ; ratification advised by the Senate Aug. 29, rati- 
fied by the President Sept. 1, and by Great Britain Oct. 20 ; ratification* exchanged Dec T I 
proclaimed Dec. 8, 1916. 
G1SG°— 33 2 9 
