1899.

On gray and black squirrels, doves and quail, there is no open
season.

The open season for deer varies from ten weeks to four weeks, and in
parts of three counties there is no open season at all.

Silencers are prohibited, and firearms in forests may be prohibited
by the Governor during droughts.

Nearly all wild-fowl shooting ends January 1, but in two places, on
December 1.

People who have not learned the facts habitually think of Maine as a
vast killing-ground for deer; and it is well for it to be known that the
hunting-grounds have been carefully designated, according to the
abundance or scarcity of game.

Maine has wisely chosen to regard her hunting-grounds and her deer as a
valuable asset, and she manages them accordingly. To be a guide in that
state is to be a good citizen, and a protector of game from illegal
slaughter. No non-resident may hunt without a licensed guide. The
licenses for the thousands of deer killed in Maine each year, and the
expenses of the visiting sportsmen who hunt them, annually bring into
the state and leave there a huge sum of money, variously estimated at
from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. One can only guess at the amount from the
number of non-resident licenses issued; but certainly the total can not
be less than $1,000,000.

Although Mr. L.T. Carleton is no longer chairman of the Commission of
Inland Fisheries and Game, the splendid services that he rendered the
state of Maine during his thirteen years of service, especially in the
creation of a good code of game laws, constitute an imperishable
monument to his name and fame.

There is very little that Maine needs in the line of new legislation,
or better protection to her game. With the enactment of a resident
license law and a five-year close season for woodcock, plover, snipe and
sandpipers, I think her laws for the protection of wild life would be
sufficiently perfect for all practical purposes. The Pine-Tree State is
to be congratulated upon its wise and efficient handling of the
wild-life situation.

MARYLAND:

How has it come to pass that Maryland _lacks_ more good wild-life laws
than any other state in the Union except North Carolina? Of the really
fundamental protective laws, embracing the list that to every
self-respecting state seems indispensable, Maryland has almost none save
certain bag-limit laws! Otherwise, the state is wide open! It is indeed
high time that she should abandon her pre