birds until September, 1918.

The above includes what we might call some of the minor regulations
proposed by the Biological Survey Committee. Then comes the big
regulation, the one which was of absorbing interest to every member of
the vast army of five million hunters in the United States. This is
the regulation which divides the country into zones and prescribes the
shooting seasons in each. Touching on this point the Government
experts already mentioned gave out this statement by way of explanation:

{185}

_Government Explanations._--"More than fifty separate seasons for
migratory birds were provided under statutes in force in 1912. This
multiplicity of regulations of zones to suit special localities has
apparently had anything but a beneficial effect on the abundance of
game. The effort to provide special seasons for each kind of game in
each locality merely makes a chain of open seasons for migratory birds
and allows the continued destruction of such birds from the beginning
of the first season to the close of the last. It is believed that
better results will follow the adoption of the fewest possible number
of zones and so regulating the seasons in each as to include the time
when such species is in the best condition or at the maximum of
abundance during the autumn. For this reason the country has been
divided into two zones, as nearly equal as possible, one to include the
states in which migratory game birds breed, or would breed if given
reasonable protection, the other the states in which comparatively few
species breed, but in which many winter. {186} Within these zones the
seasons are fixed for the principal natural groups, water fowl, Rails,
shore birds, and Woodcock. In no case does the zone boundary cross a
state line, and except in very rare cases the seasons are uniform
throughout the states."

With few changes the regulations were finally adopted. Wherever the
federal law conflicted with a state law, the former was regarded as
supreme, and to make things more generally uniform the states have
since been changing their laws to conform to the Government
regulations. After being tried out for three years these rules
recently were modified by making five shooting zones and altering
certain other provisions. These last regulations which became
effective on August 21, 1916, to-day stand as the law of the land
affecting migratory birds.

To the United States Biological Survey was intrusted