a spring-shooting law, anywhere, is a
step backward ten years!_

Massachusetts needs a bag-limit law more in keeping with her small
remnant of wild life; and that she will have ere long. Very soon, also,
her sportsmen will raise the standard of ethics in shotgun shooting, by
barring out the automatic and pump shotguns so much beloved by the
market shooters. As matters stand at this date (1912) the Old Bay State
needs the following new laws:

Low bag limits on all game.

Five-year close seasons on all shore birds, snipe and woodcock.

Expulsion of the automatic and pump shotguns, in hunting.

MICHIGAN:

On the whole, the game laws of Michigan are in excellent shape, and
leave little to be desired in the line of betterment except to be
simplified. All the game protected by the laws of the state is debarred
from sale; squirrels, pinnated grouse, doves and wild turkeys enjoy long
close seasons; the bag limits on deer and game birds are reasonably low;
spring shooting still is possible on nine species of ducks; and this
should be stopped without delay.

Only three or four suggestions are in order:

All spring shooting should be prohibited.

All shore birds should have a five-year close season.

The use of the machine shotguns in hunting should be stopped.

The laws should permit the sale, under tag, of all species of game
that can successfully be reared in preserves on a commercial basis.

Two or three state game preserves, for deer, each at least four
miles square, should be established without delay.

MINNESOTA:

This state should at once enact a bag-limit law that will do some
good, instead of the statutory farce now on the books. Make it
fifteen birds per day of waterfowl, all species combined, and no
grouse or quail.

There should be five-year close seasons enacted for quail, grouse,
plover, woodcock, snipe, and all other shore birds.

A law should be enacted prohibiting the use of firearms by
unnaturalized aliens, and a $20 license for all naturalized aliens.

Provision should be made for a large state game refuge in southern
Minnesota.

The state should prohibit the use of machine guns in hunting.

To-day, direct and reliable advices show that the game situation in
Minnesota is far from encouraging. Several species are threatened with
extinction at an early date. In northern Minnesota it is reported that
much game is surreptitiously trapped and slaughte