red. The bob white is
reported as threatened with total extinction at an early date; but I
think the prairie chicken will be the first bird species to go. Moose
will soon be extinct everywhere in Minnesota except in the game
preserves. Apparently there is now about one duck in Minnesota for every
ten ducks that were there only ten years ago.

Now, what is Minnesota going to do about all this? Is she willing
through Apathy to become a gameless state? Her people need to arouse
themselves _now_, and pass several _strong_ laws. Her bag limit of
forty-five birds _per day_ of quail, grouse, woodcock and plover, and
_fifty_ per day of the waterbirds, is a joke, and nothing more; but it
is no laughing matter. It spells extermination.

MISSISSIPPI:

The legalized slaughter of robins, cedar birds, grosbeaks and doves
should cease immediately, on the basis of economy of resources and a
square deal to all the states lying northward of Mississippi.

The shooting of all water-fowl should cease on January 1.

A reasonable limit should be established on deer.

A hunting license law should be passed at once, fixing the fee at $1
and devoting the revenue to the pay of a corps of non-political game
wardens, selected on a basis of ability and fitness.

The administration of the game laws should be placed in charge of a
salaried game commissioner.

It is seriously to the discredit of Mississippi that her laws actually
classify robins, cedar-birds, grosbeaks and doves as "game," and _make
them killable as such from Sept. 1 to March 1!_ I should think that if
no economic consideration carried weight in Mississippi, state pride
alone would be sufficient to promote a correction of the evil. If we of
the North were to slaughter mockingbirds for food, when they come North
to visit us, the men of the South would call us greedy barbarians; and
they would be quite right.

MISSOURI:

The Missouri bag limits that permit the killing or possession of
fifty birds per day are absurd, and fatally liberal. The utmost
should be twenty-five; and even that is too high.

Doves should be taken off the list of game birds, and protected
throughout the year; and so should all tree squirrels.

Spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be prohibited
without delay.

A law against automatic and pump guns should be enacted at the next
legislative session, as a public lesson on the raising of the
standard