10 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
afford protected breeding grounds for Wild Turkey, Band-tailed Pigeons, 
Dusk}^ Grouse, various quails including the Mearns’ or Fool Quail, 
and the rare White-tailed Ptarmigan of arctic-alpine mountain tops—all 
birds of great economic or zoologic interest whose preservation is greatly 
to be desired. 
The twenty-one State bird refuges afford protection for both land 
and water birds. 
STATE ORGANIZATIONS 
Forty-four States now have State associations for the protection 
of game, many of which have done important work by helping to procure 
proper laws for the protection of birds, and helping to establish bird 
refuges; by advocating the establishment of game farms; introducing 
pheasants, Hungarian partridges, and bob-whites; by restocking bird 
refuges and game farms; and by carrying on educational campaigns 
by means of illustrated lectures and the publication and distribution of 
pamphlets and State bird reports. 
In New Mexico the first game law was enacted in 1880 but the only 
birds to which it applied were turkeys, grouse, and quail. From 1898 to 
1903, game protection work was done mainly by the League of American 
Sportsmen in cooperation with the local organizations, but in 1903, the 
office of State Fish and Game Warden was created, and in 1912 the game 
protection work was organized as a department of the State. Previous 
to 1914, game protection in New Mexico followed closely the ideas and 
activities then prevalent in most States. Any efforts at constructive 
work were handicapped by unstable tenure of office, limited authority, 
insufficient funds, and lack of any concrete program or cooperation on 
the part of the sportsmen and conservationists of the State. 
But in 1914, under the leadership of Miles W. Burford, a strong 
sportsmen’s association was formed at Silver City; soon after a similar 
one was formed at Albuquerque, and in 1916 a State-wide organization 
was established under the name of the New Mexico Game Protective 
Association. By the cooperation of the State warden and local shooting 
clubs a program was agreed upon for improved game and license regu¬ 
lations, including non-partisan warden service and the support of the 
warden’s office by receipts from hunting licenses instead of by appro¬ 
priations from the State. 
In 1921 an act was passed providing for an unpaid commission 
of thiee members to constitute a Board of Directors in full charge 
of the game resources of the State. It conferred on this Board full 
authority to hire their own executive officers, to declare suitable open 
or closed seasons in any locality at any time, to establish a system of 
game and bird refuges by proclamation, to establish and operate fish 
hatcheries, to manage the funds of the Game Department, and, in 
