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:

"Last fall [1911, at Norwalk, Conn.] we had a good flight of woodcock,
and it is a shame the way they were slaughtered. I know of a number of
cases where twenty were killed by one gun in the day, and heard of one
case of fifty. This is all wrong, and means the end of the woodcock, if
continued. There is no doubt we need a bag limit on woodcock, as much as
on quail or partridge." ("Woodcock" in _Forest and Stream_, Mar. 2,