Issued January 12, 1922. 
United States Department of Agriculture, 
DEPARTMENT CIRCULAR 202 . 
Contribution from the Office of the Solicitor. 
Robert W. Williams, Solicitor. 
THE MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY ACT. 
UNITED STATES VS. JOSEPH H. LUMPKIN. 
Jury trial in the United States District Court for tlie Northern District of 
Georgia, at Athens, November 15 and 16, 1921, on indictment charging hunt¬ 
ing, killing, and possession of MOURNING DOVES in Oglethorpe County, 
Georgia, on August 2, 1920, in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act 
of July 3, 1918. Verdict, guilty; sentence, fine $25 and costs. 
RULING OF THE COURT AND CHARGE TO JURY. 
SYLLABUS . 1 
The Treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the protection 
of migratory birds (39 Stat., 1702) declares that doves are migratory, and where- 
the evidence fails to establish that they or any distinct variety of them are 
clearly nonmigratory it is established as a matter of law that they are migra¬ 
tory birds within the meaning of such Treaty, and in a prosecution for hunting 
or killing mourning doves in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 
July 3, 1918 (40 Stat. 755), the question whether the mourning doves hunted 
or killed may have been resident in any particular State can not be heard by 
a jury. 
In a prosecution for hunting or killing mourning doves in violation of the 
Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918 (40 Stat. 755), evidence is inad¬ 
missible on the part of the defendant that the particular mourning doves 
hunted or killed were resident in the State where they were hunted or killed. 
In a prosecution for unlawfully hunting or killing birds of a species which 
migrates between the United States and Canada and which is included within 
the terms of the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the 
protection of migratory birds, it is no defense that the individual bird hunted 
or killed was not migratory. 
The effect of the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain for 
the protection of migratory birds, ratified by the Senate and backed by the 
Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, and then reinforced by the interpre¬ 
tation of the Secretary of Agriculture, who was the executive officer selected 
to enforce it, is to say expressly that the mourning doves of Georgia are 
migratory. 
1 By Robert W. Williams, Solicitor, United States Department of Agriculture. 
80935—22 
