e seasons for all species that are about to be "shot
out_."

If the gunners of America wish to have a gameless continent, all they
need do to secure it is to oppose these principles, prevent their
translation into law, and maintain the status quo. If they do this, then
_all our best birds are doomed to swift destruction_. Let no man make a
mistake on that point. The "open seasons" and "bag limits" of the United
States to-day are just as deadly as the 5,000,000 sporting guns now in
use, and the 700,000,000 annual cartridges. It is only the ignorant or
the vicious who will seriously dispute this statement.

THE FEDERAL PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS.--The bill now before Congress
for the protection of all migratory birds by the national government is
the most important measure ever placed before that body in behalf of
wild life. A stranger to this proposition will need to pause for thought
in order to grasp its full meaning, and appreciate the magnitude of its
influence.

The urgent necessity for a law of this nature is due to the utter
inadequacy of the laws that prevail throughout some portions of the
United States concerning the slaughter and preservation of birds. Any
law that is not enforced is a poor law. There is not one state in the
Union, nor a single province in Canada, in which the game birds, and
other birds criminally shot as game, are not being killed far faster
than they are breeding, and thereby being exterminated.

Several states are financially unable to employ a force of salaried game
wardens; and wherever that is true, the door to universal slaughter is
wide open. Let him who questions this take Virginia as a case in point.
A loyal Virginian told me only this year that in his state the warden
system is an ineffective farce, and the game is not protected, because
the wardens can not afford to patrol the state for nothing.

This condition prevails in a number of states, north and south,
especially south. It is my belief that throughout nine-tenths of the
South, the negroes and poor whites are slaughtering birds exactly as
they please. It is the _permanent residents_ of the haunts of birds and
game that are exterminating the wild life.

The value of the birds as destroyers of noxious insects, has been set
forth in Chapter XXIII. Their total value is enormous--or it _would_ be
if the birds were alive and here in their normal numbers. To-day there
are about one-tenth as many birds as were alive and w