y
intelligent schoolboy fifteen years old can master them in one hour. I
have performed this task hopefully, in the belief that in many states
the real issues have not been plainly put before the people. Hereafter
no state shall destroy its wild life through ignorance of the laws that
would preserve it.

Let no man say that "it is too late to save the wild life"; for
excepting the dead-and-gone species, that is not true. Let no man say
that "we can not save the wild life by law"; for that is not true,
either. As long as laws are lax, even law-abiding people will take
advantage of them.

There are millions of men who think it is _right to kill all the game
that the law allows_! There are thousands of women who think it is right
to wear aigrettes as long as the law permits their sale! And yet, if we
are resolute and diligent there is plenty of hope for the future. During
the past three years, to go no farther back, we have seen the whole
state of New York swept clean of the traffic in native wild game by the
Bayne law, and of the traffic in wild birds' plumage on women's hats
through the Dutcher law. To-day, in this state, we find ninety-nine
women out of every one hundred wearing flowers, and laces, and plush and
satin on their hats, instead of the heads, bodies and feathers of wild
birds that were the regular thing until three years ago. The change has
been a powerful commentary on the value of good laws for the protection
of wild life. The Dutcher law has caused the plumage of wild birds
_almost wholly to disappear from the State of New York_!

We shall here point out the plain duty of each state; and then it will
be up to them, individually, to decide whether they can stand the
blood-test or not.

A state or a nation can be ungentlemanly, unfair or mean, just the same
as an individual. No state has a right to maintain shambles for the
slaughter of migratory game or song birds that belong in part to sister
states. _Every state holds its migratory bird life in trust, for the
benefit of the people of the nation at large_. A state is just as
responsible for its treatment of wild life as any individual; and it is
time to open books of account.

It is robbery, as well as murder, for any southern state to slaughter
the robins of the northern states, where no robins may be killed. _No
southern gentleman can permit such doings, after the crime has been
pointed out to him_! In the North, the men who are caught shooting
r