International Migrants
Good work is going on, thanks chiefly to this International Committee, in Europe as well as in the Americas and the West Indies. We have just passed a protective Act for duck and geese that has the essential virtue of shortening the season when duck may be shot. Hitherto they have been shot both when beginning to breed and before the flappers had the full use of their wings. The decoys which were once tolerably numerous have mostly gone out of action in this country, though a certain number of many species are still so trapped near Peterborough, at Abbotsbury and some few other decoys. In Holland the decoy is in full swing and is allowed to operate till late in February, much too long for such early nesting birds as the tribe of ducks. Both we, who harbour too many long-shore gunners of a spring-time activity, and the Dutch begin to amend our ways.
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