ROLL OF HONOR

CONNECTICUT
MAINE
MASSACHUSETTS
NEW HAMPSHIRE
NEW JERSEY
NEW YORK
VERMONT
WEST VIRGINIA

[Illustration:  WOOD DUCK Regularly Killed as “Food” in 15 States]

And how is it with the other states that number the wood-duck in their avian faunas?  I am ashamed to tell; but it is necessary that the truth should be known.

Surely we will find that if the other states have not the grace to protect this bird on account of its exquisite beauty they will not penalize it by extra long open seasons.

A number of them have taken pains to provide extra long OPEN seasons on this species, usually of five or six months!! And this for a bird so exquisitely beautiful that shooting it for the table is like dining on birds of paradise.  Here is a partial list of them: 

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WOOD-DUCK-EATING STATES (1912)

Georgia kills and eats the Wood-duck from Sept. 1, to Feb. 1. 
Indiana, Iowa and Kansas do so " Sept. 1, to Apr. 15. 
Kentucky, (extra long!) does so " Aug. 15, to Apr. 1. 
Louisiana (extra long!) " " " Sept. 1, to Mar. 1. 
Maryland " " " Nov. 1, to Apr. 1. 
Michigan " " " Oct. 15, to Jan. 1. 
Nebraska (extra long!) " " " Sept. 1, to Apr. 1. 
Ohio " " " Sept. 1, to Jan. 1. 
Pennsylvania, (extra long!) " " " Sept. 1, to Apr. 11. 
Rhode Island, " " " " " Aug. 15, to Apr. 1. 
South Carolina " " " " " Sept. 1, to Mar. 1. 
South Dakota " " " " " Sept. 10, to Apr. 10. 
Tennessee " " " " " Aug. 1, to Apr. 15. 
Virginia " " " Aug. 1, to Jan. 1. 
Wisconsin " " " Sept. 1, to Jan. 1.

The above are the states that really possess the wood-duck and that should give it, one and all, a series of five-year close seasons.  Now, is not the record something to blush for?

Is there in those fifteen states nothing too beautiful or too good to go into the pot?

* * * * *

THE WOODCOCK (Philohela minor), is a bird regarding which my bird-hunting friends and I do not agree.  I say that as a species it is steadily disappearing, and presently will become extinct, unless it is accorded better protection.  They reply:  “Well, I can show you where there are woodcock yet!”

A few months ago a Nova Scotian writer in Forest and Stream came out with the bold prediction that three more years of the usual annual slaughter of woodcock will bring the species to the verge of extinction in that Province.

It is such occurrences as this that bring the end of a species: