Section 2. Nothing Herein Contained Shall Apply to the Shooting of Any

wild game in its wild state.

The bill is a direct and not wholly unexpected result of the Coney Island pigeon-killing tournament of the New York State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game. Had the sport of pigeon shooting been confined to individual clubs of gentlemen testing their skill at the traps, it is doubtful if the matter ever would have received, as it would not have merited, public attention. But when a society, which organized ostensibly for the protection of game, treats the public to such a spectacle as that at Coney Island, neglects the matter with which it should be concerned and devotes 20,000 pigeons brought from their nesting ground to its wholesale slaughter, its members can hardly look for any other public sentiment than exactly that feeling which has been aroused. An afternoon's shoot at a few pigeons, and a ten days' shoot at unlimited numbers of helpless birds--many of them squabs, unable to fly, and others too exhausted to do so--are regarded by the public as two very different things.

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Transcriber's note:

Obvious punctuation and spelling errors were corrected.

One 'signature' of Ruthven Deane was modified from the printed version to match the others.

Where quotations began and were not closed, a closing quotation mark was placed at the end of that paragraph:

p. 155 "There are no wild pigeons in Iosco County... p. 171 "In three years' time...