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 working thirty years ago.  During the past thirty years the destruction of our game birds has been enormous, and the insectivorous birds have greatly decreased.

The damages annually inflicted upon the farm, orchard and garden crops of this country are very great.  When a city is destroyed by earthquake or fire, and $100,000,000 worth of property is swept away, we are racked with horror and pity; and the cities of America pour out money like water to relieve the resultant distress.  We are shocked because we can see the flames, the smoke and the ruins.

And yet, we annually endure with perfect equanimity (because we can not see it?) a loss of nearly $400,000,000 worth of value that is destroyed by insects.  The damage is inflicted silently, insidiously, without any scare heads or wooden type in the newspapers, and so we pay the price without protest.  We know—­when we stop to think of it—­that not all this loss falls upon the producer.  We know that every consumer of bread, cereals, vegetables and fruit pays his share of this loss!  To-day, millions of people are groaning under the “increased cost of living.”  The bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds is directly intended to decrease the cost of living, by preventing outrageous waste; but of all the persons to whom the needs of that bill are presented, how many will take the time to promote its quick passage by direct appeals to their members of Congress?  We shall see.