between the United States and Canada, and the enforcement of sections 241, 242, 243, and 244 of the Lacey Act of March 4, 1909 (U.S.C., title 18, secs. 391-394) and the administration of section 1 of the act of May 25, 1900 (U.S.C., title 16, sec. 701).

Work under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act includes the determination of open or closed seasons for migratory game birds, the maintenance of a force of game protectors throughout the country and allied duties for the protection of migratory game and nongame species. Investigations are made of the abundance, migratory movements, and conditions which affect ducks, geese, and other migratory birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The Act of March 4, 1909 (U.S.C., title 18, secs. 391-394) prohibits the importation into the United States of birds and mammals which may be injurious to agriculture or horticulture; provides for regulating the entry of other foreign wild mammals and birds into this country, and prohibits the transportation in interstate commerce by common carrier of game killed or shipped in violation of local laws.

P.W.A. FUNDS APPLICABLE UNDER THIS HEADING

An allotment of $34,650 under the National Industrial Recovery Act has been made for the construction of 6 boats for the use of United States game protectors in patrol work and for the reconditioning of 3 boats now in use. This money was made available September 18, 1933, and will be expended during this fiscal year.

ESTIMATE FOR 1935

Mr. SANDLIN. The estimate submitted by the Budget for 1935 under this item is $118,210. Your current appropriation is $198,190. Your estimated obligations for the current year are $149,206. So the estimate of the Budget for 1935 represents a decrease compared with the estimated obligations for 1934 of $30,996.

Will you give us a statement on this item?

Mr. REDINGTON. Mr. Lincoln will discuss this item.

Mr. LINCOLN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee. We are going back to birds now, having discussed mammals to some

extent.

CURTAILMENT OF FUNDS FOR 1935

I am speaking particularly with reference to the items that have been deleted from the estimates for this next year; the investigational item of $29,327 and the enforcement item of $5,635, and the item under the Lacey Act of $500.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Chairman, just how does the Budget leave this appropriation?

Mr. SANDLIN. They are going to spend for 1934, as I have said, $149,206 and the estimate submitted is for $118,210, which represents a reduction of $30,996.

Mr. HENDERSON. Also, it involves the entire elimination of neo of the projects.

Mr. SANDLIN. The entire elimination of the investigation of migratory birds. That is the largest item, $29,327.

Mr. CANNON. As I understand it, then, it has been reduced heretofore to a minimum and you cannot make any further reductions without completely discontinuing the service.

Mr. HENDERSON. That is it exactly. Under "Protection of migra tory birds" the item for investigations of migratory birds is absolutely essential to intelligent administration of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and in meeting our obligations under the Migratory Bird Treaty with Great Britain. These investigations have to do primarily with determining essential facts regarding the abundance or scarcity of

ducks, geese, and other valuable migratory birds. Ducks are at the present time in a particularly critical condition, owing to the effects upon them of drought, drainage, agricultural development, and overshooting, the continued existence of many important species being seriously endangered. Continuation of field investigations, including study of the main migration routes through application of banding methods, are necessary to meet the constantly changing conditions of this important recreational and economic asset, and to enable the Bureau to serve intelligently and effectively, in cooperation with the Canadian Government, in affording protection to waterfowl and establishing sanctuaries in the breeding, feeding, resting, and wintering areas. The reduction in this item will necessitate the discontinuance of all field investigations required as a basis for administrative action under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and would involve the dismissal of several trained and experienced members of the staff, whose services are indispensable to the proper conduct of the Bureau's work.

Mr. LINCOLN. I might say, gentlemen, that it is a rather queer situation with which we are confronted. The elimination of that item, the investigational item, would be, as a physician in town suggested to me just a day or two ago, like running a hospital without any nurses or doctors. In other words with the discontinuance of the projects, food-habits research and investigations of migratory birds, all the ornithologists would be eliminated from the Bureau.

The significance of that will be apparent to you when you will recall that we are charged by Congress with the enforcement of three bird laws, the Lacey Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Migratory Bird Conservation Act.

We would have no ornithologists, and as I have said, quoting what my friend the doctor said a day or two ago, it would be like running a hospital without any nurses or doctors.

There is another interesting thing about this in that the project that was really responsible for bringing the Biological Survey into existence 50 years ago is the project that would be included in this elimination. That is the investigation of the distribution and migration of birds.

It is the fundamental information on which we base our actions under the various laws with the enforcement of which we are charged. To give you an idea of just what we are doing, and also what has been done in the past: I may say that in this work we have relied very heavily-in fact almost entirely-upon volunteer cooperation. Cooperation has been a watchword with the Bureau from its inception. Originally we started building up a file on the distribution and migration of birds, which at the present time numbers about 11⁄2 million cards, on all North American species. All this work on the distribution and migration of birds would have to stop.

BIRD-BANDING WORK

In recent years, and to come specifically to something with which I am particularly well acquainted, we have taken up this bird-banding work, of which I have no doubt all of you have heard. That was taken up by the Biological Survey in 1920 and, again applying the system that has been so successful in the past, voluntary cooperation, we have met with striking success in building up this activity.

At the present time we have nearly 1,900 voluntary cooperators who serve without pay.

Last year these voluntary cooperators banded for us something more than a quarter of a million birds, from which we subsequently heard from something over 17,000.

Since the banding work was started in 1920, these same cooperators have banded a grand total of well over a million and a quarter, or nearly a million three hundred thousand.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Just briefly, what is the purpose of the bird-banding work and what are the results obtained from it?

Mr. LINCOLN. To give specific information concerning the migration and other features in the life histories of birds, by means of studies of individual birds; in other words, instead of making general statements for the different species-·

Mr. SINCLAIR. You learn what the individual bird itself does?

Mr. LINCOLN. That is correct, what the individual bird does, and by the application of a number of such cases, we learn what the species does.

Mr. CANNON. The young are banded in the nesting areas?

Mr. LINCOLN. To some extent, but chiefly we are banding adult birds. We have found we get much greater success by banding the adults.

Mr. CANNON. How do you take these birds?

Mr. LINCOLN. By traps, we have worked out and constantly are developing suitable traps that will take these birds without injuring them in any way, and when the birds are captured, they are banded and released.

That is done under special permits provided for by the regulations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Mr. CANNON. Those grounds are principally in Canada where the birds are banded.

Mr. LINCOLN. No. We have about 200 cooperators in Canada, but most of our cooperators are in the United States.

Mr. CANNON. The breeding grounds, the nesting areas, are in Canada?

Mr. LINCOLN. You are speaking of migratory waterfowl, I presume? Mr. CANNON. Yes.

Mr. LINCOLN. That is very largely true. The great majority of our migratory waterfowl are bred in Canada. We have banding stations on those breeding grounds. Also we have banding stations on the breeding grounds in our own country.

Mr. CANNON. What other birds are banded?

Mr. LINCOLN. We band all native birds. The banding work may be well divided into two groups, the work that is concerned with migratory waterfowl, that is, game birds; and that devoted to the nongame birds, that is, the song and insectivorous birds.

Many of our cooperators do nothing more than operate little banding stations in their yards, while others who have extensive grounds and better facilities, maintain very large stations.

Mr. CANNON. They supply their own equipment?

Mr. LINCOLN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. You supply nothing. Do you issue instructions? Mr. LINCOLN. We supply full instructions together with the bands and, from the Washington office we also furnish the administration, and the general direction, of all banding activities.

Mr. HENDERSON. What is the value of that service that we receive from these cooperators in a year?

Mr. LINCOLN. As a matter of interest, I figured that out just a short time ago, using the figures supplied by the C.W.A. I obtained a record of the hours put in on banding work by cooperators in the field, and it showed that around $150,000 a year is being contributed to us by our cooperators, plus their equipment. This equipment ranges from $4 or $5 apiece for the small stations, to those of large size where several thousand dollars have been spent on traps and technical apparatus.

Mr. SINCLAIR. And these cooperators are willing to contribute that for the love of the birds?

Mr. LINCOLN. Just for the love of the birds, and their interest in advancing the science of ornithology, that is it exactly, Mr. Sinclair. Mr. CANNON. The bird is not injured in the process?

Mr. LINCOLN. The bird is not injured. That has been one of the very remarkable things. In the beginning there was some apprehension on the part of the more sentimental bird lovers that a great number of the birds would be injured.

Mr. SINCLAIR. They were afraid that the birds would be injured a little?

Mr. LINCOLN. Yes, they were afraid the birds would be injured when handled by unskilled fingers, or by being caught in the traps. In the beginning, we did not have very much of an argument to refute those people, but we said that the work would be done very carefully. I am happy to say that it has been, and you should bear in mind that many of these birds are not only caught and banded, but that they come back again and again to the traps, year after year. So it is not that they are handled just once, but over and over again.

Mr. CANNON. They sometimes return to the same trap?

Mr. LINCOLN. That is correct. Just to give you some first-hand information about that, I may refer to one of my traps, which is operated on a feeding shelf on a second-story porch. In that trap, 4 years ago I banded several purple finches, a species that is here only in winter. It is a northern bird that comes down here to spend the winter season.

In

The next year, on the same day of the month on which two of those birds were banded, they were caught again on that same shelf. other words, they had returned to the exact spot where they had been captured in the previous year. I could give you literally hundreds of instances of that kind.

Mr. CANNON. The band is not a handicap to the bird?

Mr. LINCOLN. No. The weight of it is infinitesimal. There are

7 or 8 different sizes of bands that are being used.

For the sake of your information, gentlemen, I might mention some of our cooperators, and who they are. Some of them are well known to you. The Honorable Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, holds a Federal bird-banding permit and is carried on our list as a cooperator who has operated a small bird station at his home in Illinois.

In Louisiana, Mr. Sandlin, the Honorable E. A.McIlhenny, operates what is probably our largest waterfowl station. He has expended large sums of money in the banding of waterfowl, since this kind of work is expensive. It is an expensive matter to furnish feed for water

fowl as a flock of ducks can consume an enormous quantity of grain. Also, the traps are necessarily of large size. He has banded about 6,000 ducks during this season.

Mr. SINCLAIR. He is banding ducks raised up in my country.

Mr. LINCOLN. That is true. Now, coming up to your country, Mr. Sinclair

Mr. SANDLIN. In other words, he is cooperating?

Mr. LINCOLN. Yes; Mr. McIlhenny is cooperating and is doing excellent work.

Mr. SINCLAIR. We have a number of very active stations in your State. Among them I might mention Professor Stevens at the State Agricultural College at Fargo, Mr. Boardman, and Mr. Berner of Jamestown, and Judge Thompson of Lisbon.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Yes; I know them all.

Mr. LINCOLN. They are all of them very active banding cooper

ators.

Coming down to Missouri, Mr. Cannon, I may mention Joseph Pulitzer, of the St. Louis Fost Dispatch; Frofessor Bolen of the State Teachers' College at Cape Girardeau ard Dr. Haseman, of the University of Missouri.

Mr. SANDLIN. Is Senator Hawes doing any banding?

Mr. LINCOLN. No; I cannot report that so far Senator Hawes has done any bird banding.

Mr. HART. Have you any cooperators in Michigan?

Mr. LINCOLN. I am happy to say that Michigan is one of our most active States in cooperation. Our cooperators are so numerous in Michigan that they recently formed themselves into a State organization, the first of its kind. While we have four regional organizations, including the cooperators from the States of the northeastern, eastern, inland and western regions, Michigan is the first State to form its own local organization, which they call The Michigan Bird Banders.

Mr. SINCLAIR. What will be the effect of the dropping out of this project?

Mr. LINCOLN. It absolutely eliminates this work.

Mr. SINCLAIR. It stops the work of these banders?

Mr. LINCOLN. It stops all of that work, and I would like to insert here a letter received by the Secretary of Agriculture from Dr. Leon J. Cole, professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin.

Hon. HENRY A. WALLACE,

Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

JANUARY 16, 1934.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY: The recommendations of the Bureau of the Budget covering appropriations for the work of the Bureau of Biological Survey have just come to my attention. I do not know whether these are representative of the recommendations for all Bureaus in the Department, but if so, Government agricultural research is in a serious, not to say desperate situation. They represent a policy that is absolutely destructive of any progress and which, if carried through will destroy fact-finding agencies in the Government's machinery that are absolutely essential for intelligent administration.

For the purpose of argument, let me use the case of the Biological Survey. Let us grant that some retrenchment may be necessary at this time (though one wonders why it is necessary to neglect the engine when millions are being spent on a paint job), and we may also grant that some reorganization or shift of emphasis may be desirable in the Biological Survey as elsewhere; but such reorganization should be undertaken intelligently, with due regard to the balance of the activities concerned. In the case of the Biological Survey the policy appears to have been to continue the regulatory functions and to cut out com