There are millions of men who think it is _right to kill all the game that the law allows_! There are thousands of women who think it is right to wear aigrettes as long as the law permits their sale! And yet, if we are resolute and diligent there is plenty of hope for the future. During the past three years, to go no farther back, we have seen the whole state of New York swept clean of the traffic in native wild game by the Bayne law, and of the traffic in wild birds' plumage on women's hats through the Dutcher law. To-day, in this state, we find ninety-nine women out of every one hundred wearing flowers, and laces, and plush and satin on their hats, instead of the heads, bodies and feathers of wild birds that were the regular thing until three years ago. The change has been a powerful commentary on the value of good laws for the protection of wild life. The Dutcher law has caused the plumage of wild birds _almost wholly to disappear from the State of New York_! We shall here point out the plain duty of each state; and then it will be up to them, individually, to decide whether they can stand the blood-test or not. A state or a nation can be ungentlemanly, unfair or mean, just the same as an individual. No state has a right to maintain shambles for the slaughter of migratory game or song birds that belong in part to sister states. _Every state holds its migratory bird life in trust, for the benefit of the people of the nation at large_. A state is just as responsible for its treatment of wild life as any individual; and it is time to open books of account. It is robbery, as well as murder, for any southern state to slaughter the robins of the northern states, where no robins may be killed. _No southern gentleman can permit such doings, after the crime has been pointed out to him_! In the North, the men who are caught shooting robins are instantly haled to court, and fined or imprisoned. If we of the North should kill for food the mockingbirds that visit us, the people of the South instantly would brand us as monsters of greed and meanness; and they would be perfectly justified in so doing. Let us at least be honest in "agreeing upon a state of fact," as the lawyers say, whether we act sensibly and mercifully or not. Just so long as there remains in this land of ours a fauna of game birds, and the gunners of one-half the states are allowed to dictate the laws for the slaughter of it, just so long will our present protection remain utterly absurd and criminally inadequate. Look at these absurdities: New York, New Jersey and many other northern states rigidly prohibit the late winter and spring shooting of waterfowl and shore birds, and limit the bag; North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and other southern states not only slaughter wild fowl and shore birds all winter and spring, without limit, but several of them kill certain non-game birds besides!