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in force for a period of five years; and it shall thereafter remain in force until twelve months after one of the High Contracting Parties have given notice to the other of an intention to terminate it.

In witness whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the present treaty and have affixed thereunto their seals.

Done in duplicate at Washington on the 15th day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fourteen.

[SEAL.] [SEAL.]

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
CECIL SPRING RICE

AGREEMENT EFFECTED BY EXCHANGE OF NOTES EXTENDING THE TIME FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF THE COMMISSION UNDER ARTICLE II OF THE TREATY OF SEPTEMBER 15, 1914, FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PEACE.

Signed at Washington November 3, 1915.

(Treaty Series, No. 602-A.)

[The Secretary of State to the British Ambassador.]

Excellency:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 3, 1915.

It not having been found feasible to complete the international commission provided for in the treaty of September 15, 1914, between the United States and Great Britain, looking to the advancement of the general cause of peace, within the time specified in the treaty, which expired on May 10, 1915, I have the honor to suggest for the consideration of your Government that the time within which the organization of the commission may be completed be extended by an exchange of notes from May 10, 1915, to January 1, 1916.

Your formal notification in writing, of the same date as this, that your Government receives the suggestion favorably, will be regarded on this Government's part as sufficient to give effect to the extension, and I shall be glad to receive your assurance that it will be so regarded by your Government also.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, Your Excellency's most obedient servant,

His Excellency

Sir:

Sir CECIL ARTHUR SPRING-RICE,

ROBERT LANSING

Ambassador of Great Britain.

[The British Ambassador to the Secretary of State.]

BRITISH EMBASSY, Washington, November 3, 1915.

I have honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Note of this day's date in which you state as follows:

"It not having been found feasible to complete the international commission provided for in the treaty of September 15, 1914, be

tween the United States and Great Britain, looking to the advancement of the general cause of peace, within the time specified in the treaty, which expired on May 10, 1915, I have the honour to suggest for the consideration of your Government that the time within which the organization of the commission may be completed be extended by an exchange of notes from May 10, 1915, to January 1, 1916.

Your formal notification in writing, of the same date as this, that your Government receives the suggestion favourably, will be regarded on this Government's part as sufficient to give effect to the extension, and I shall be glad to receive your assurance that it will be so regarded by your Government also".

I have the honour to inform you in reply that His Majesty's Government accepts this suggestion made by the United States Government and that they regard the exchange of to-day's Notes as sufficient to give effect to the extension.

I have the honour to be,

With the highest consideration,
Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

The Honourable ROBERT LANSING,

Secretary of State

CECIL SPRING RICE.

of the United States, etc., etc., etc.

1916.

CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS.1

Signed at Washington August 16, 1916; ratification advised by the Senate August 29, 1916; ratified by the President September 1, 1916; ratified by Great Britain October 20, 1916; ratifications exchanaged at Washington December 7, 1916; proclaimed December 8, 1916.

(Treaty Series, No. 628; 39 Statutes at Large, 1702.)

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Whereas, Many species of birds in the course of their annual migrations traverse certain parts of the United States and the Dominion of Canada; and

State of Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416; United States v. Samples, 258 Fed. 479; United States v. Thompson, 258 Fed. 257; United States v. Selkirk, 258 Fed. 775; United States v. Rockefeller, 260 Fed. 346; United States v. Fuld Store Co., 262 Fed. 836.

Whereas, Many of these species are of great value as a source of food or in destroying insects which are injurious to forests and forage plants on the public domain, as well as to agricultural crops, in both the United States and Canada, but are nevertheless in danger of extermination through lack of adequate protection during the nesting season or while on their way to and from their breeding grounds;

The United States of America and His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, being desirous of saving from indiscriminate slaughter and of insuring the preservation of such migratory birds as are either useful to man or are harmless. have resolved to adopt some uniform system of protection which shall effectively accomplish such objects and to the end of concluding a convention for this purpose have appointed as their respective Plenipotentiaries:

The President of the United States of America, Robert Lansing, Secretary of State of the United States; and

His Britannic Majesty, the Right Honorable Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, G. C. V. O., K. C. M. G., etc., His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Washington;

Who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers which were found to be in due and proper form, have agreed to and adopted the following articles:

ARTICLE I.

The High Contracting Powers declare that the migratory birds included in the terms of this Convention shall be as follows: 1. Migratory Game Birds:

(a) Anatidae or waterfowl, including brant, wild ducks, geese,

and swans.

(b) Gruidae or cranes, including little brown, sandhill, and whooping cranes.

(c) Rallidae or rails, including coots, gallinules and sora and

other rails.

(d) Limicolae or shorebirds, including avocets, curlew, dowitchers, godwits, knots, oyster catchers, phalaropes, plovers, sandpipers, snipe, stilts, surf birds, turnstones, willet, woodcock and yellowlegs.

(e) Columbidae or pigeons, including doves and wild pigeons. 2. Migratory Insectivorous Birds:

Bobolinks, catbirds, chicadees, cuckoos, flickers, flycatchers, grosbeaks, humming birds, kinglets, martins, meadowlarks, nighthawks or bull bats, nut-hatches, orioles, robins, shrikes, swallows, swifts, tanagers, titmice, thrushes, vireos, warblers. wax-wings, whippoorwills, woodpeckers and wrens, and all other perching birds which feed entirely or chiefly on insects. 3. Other Migratory Nongame Birds:

Auks. auklets, bitterns, fulmars, gannets, grebes, guillemots, gulls, herons, jaegers, loons, murres, petrels, puffins, shearwaters, and terns.

ARTICLE II.

The High Contracting Powers agree that, as an effective means of preserving migratory birds there shall be established the following close seasons during which no hunting shall be done except for scientific or propagating purposes under permits issued by proper authori

ties.

1. The close season on migratory game birds shall be between March 10 and September 1, except that the close season on the Limicolae or shorebirds in the Maritime Provinces of Canada and in those States of the United States bordering on the Atlantic Ocean, which are situated wholly or in part north of Chesapeake Bay shall be between February 1 and August 15, and that Indians may take at any time scoters for food but not for sale. The season for hunting shall be further restricted to such period not exceeding three and onehalf months as the High Contracting Powers may severally deem appropriate and define by law or regulation.

2. The close season on migratory insectivorous birds shall continue throughout the year.

3. The close season on other migratory nongame birds shall continue throughout the year, except that Eskimos and Indians may take at any season auks, auklets, guillemots, murres and puffins, and their eggs for food and their skins for clothing, but the birds and eggs so taken shall not be sold or offered for sale.

ARTICLE III.

The High Contracting Powers agree that during the period of ten years next following the going into effect of this Convention there shall be a continuous close season on the following migratory game birds, to wit:

Band-tailed pigeons, little brown, sandhill and whooping cranes, swans, curlew and all shorebirds (except the black-breasted and golden plover, Wilson or jack snipe, woodcock, and the greater and lesser yellowlegs); provided that during such ten years the close seasons on cranes, swans and curlew in the Province of British Columbia shall be made by the proper authorities of that Province within the general dates and limitations elsewhere prescribed in this Convention for the respective groups to which these birds belong.

ARTICLE IV.

The High Contracting Powers agree that special protection shall be given the wood duck and the eider duck either (1) by a close season extending over a period of at least five years, or (2) by the establishment of refuges, or (3) by such other regulations as may be deemed appropriate.

ARTICLE V.

The taking of nests or eggs of migratory game or insectivorous or nongame birds shall be prohibited, except for scientific or propagating purposes under such laws or regulations as the High Contracting Powers may severally deem appropriate.

ARTICLE VI.

The High Contracting Powers agree that the shipment or export of migratory birds or their eggs from any State or Province, during the continuance of the close season in such State or Province, shall be prohibited except for scientific or propagating purposes, and the international traffic in any birds or eggs at such time captured, killed, taken, or shipped at any time contrary to the laws of the State or Province in which the same were captured, killed, taken, or shipped shall be likewise prohibited. Every package containing migratory birds or any parts thereof or any eggs of migratory birds transported, or offered for transportation from the United States into the Dominion of Canada or from the Dominion of Canada into the United States, shall have the name and address of the shipper and an accurate statement of the contents clearly marked on the outside of such package.

ARTICLE VII.

Permits to kill any of the above-named birds which, under extraordinary conditions, may become seriously injurious to the agricultural or other interests in any particular community, may be issued by the proper authorities of the High Contracting Powers under suitable regulations prescribed therefor by them respectively, but such permits shall lapse, or may be cancelled, at any time when, in the opinion of said authorities, the particular exigency has passed, and no birds killed under this article shall be shipped, sold or offered for sale.

ARTICLE VIII.

The High Contracting Powers agree themselves to take, or propose to their respecting appropriate law-making bodies, the necessary measures for insuring the execution of the present Convention.1

ARTICLE IX.

The present Convention shall be ratified by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by His Britannic Majesty. The ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington as soon as possible and the Convention shall take effect on the date of the exchange of the ratifications. It shall remain in force for fifteen years and in the event of neither of the High Contracting Powers having given notification, twelve months before the expiration of said period of fifteen years, of its intention of terminating its operation, the Convention shall continue to remain in force for one year and so on from year to year.

In faith whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Convention in duplicate and have hereunto affixed their seals. Done at Washington this sixteenth day of August, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen.

[SEAL.] [SEAL.]

ROBERT LANSING.
CECIL SPRING RICE.

The act of March 4, 1913, makes the appropriate provision for the execution of the convention under the Department of Agriculture, Biological Survey Bureau. See 37 Statutes at Large, 847.

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