"Unless and except as permitted by regulations made as hereinafter provided in this subchapter, it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill, possess, offer for sale, sell, offer to barter, barter, offer to purchase, purchase, deliver for shipment, ship, export, import, cause to be shipped, exported, or imported, deliver for transportation, transport or cause to be transported, carry or cause to be carried, or receive for shipment, transportation, carriage, or export, any migratory bird, any part, nest, or egg of any such bird, or any product, whether or not manufactured, which consists, or is composed in whole or part, of any such bird or any part, nest, or egg thereof…."That is the law today. It is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, codified in 16 U.S. Code sections 703–712. The law initially referred to a treaty with Canada (Great Britain, 1916), and coverage expanded via treaties with Mexico, 1936; Japan, 1972; and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (now Russia), 1976). The law provides strong protection for migratory birds on an international, multi-continental scale. And it is the legacy of George P. McLean.Working in the context of partisan politics, state opposition, constitutional limitations, and the Great War (World War I), Senator McLean successfully advocated for the protection of migratory birds.Author Will McLean Greeley grew up in a Democratic household in Michigan, far removed in time and distance from the Republican home of his great great uncle George P. McLean in Connecticut. Trained as an archivist, Greeley had a career in business and market research before turning to the source of his middle name as a topic. McLean had left no collection of papers to prosperity when he died in 1932; nonetheless, through extensive research, Greeley has pieced together a fascinating story of McLean's life and legacy. This is the story of past times and of politics as well as man who became known as the birdman of the Senate.In brief, George Payne McLean (1857-1932) was grew up on a farm in Simsbury, Connecticut. Through apprenticeship, he became a lawyer and a Republican. He served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives (1883-1884), clerk of the State Board of Pardons (1884-1901), member of the state Senate (1886, 1889-1891), US Attorney for Connecticut (1892-1896), governor of Connecticut (1901-1903), and US Senator (1911-1929). In the Senate he chaired the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection through four congresses and served on the Committee on Banking and Currency for another four and on the Committee on Manufactures during his final congress.According to Greeley, McLean was "at heart a political reformer who used compromise to help resolve some of America's greatest social, political, and economic problems." Furthermore, McLean recognized the importance of the public in affecting change. At one point, for example, he wrote the president of the Audubon Society, "We must use every effort to secure the support of the pubic until the birds of America are saved."Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington is the biography of one person, from birth to death, but it is also the story of that person working with others. For bird conservation, he worked with Representative John W. Weeks (1860–1925), a Republican from Massachusetts, on the Weeks-McLean Act of 1913, and with President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), a Democrat from New Jersey, on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.The Weeks-McLean Act prohibited spring hunting migratory birds, marketing migratory birds, and importing wild bird feathers, and it authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set hunting seasons nationwide. It became effective in March 1913 but later fell to challenges based on state's rights and the constitutional limitations on the Federal Government. In terms of Weeks's legacy, bird conservation therefore became secondary to the Weeks Act of 1911 that enabled the establishment of national forests in the eastern United States. It did so by authorizing the Federal Government to purchase private property for the protection of watersheds and to manage those lands in the national forest system.The subsequent Migratory Bird Treaty Act became McLean's legacy because he — with the help of President Wilson — maneuvered around the issues that fell the Weeks-McLean Act. The Treaty Act protected migratory birds through international treaty, a mechanism requiring only that the President negotiate a treaty and that the Senate approve it, a process beyond court review and not subject to state's rights arguments as it is clearly defined in the U.S. Constitution. The solution was creative, lasting, and effective.A duck hunter, McLean had begun his interest in conservation with game, but he took conservation farther than others of his time even dreamed possible.For anyone interested in bird conservation, politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Connecticut history, or the role of an individual in affecting change, I enthusiastically recommend this highly readable biography of George P. McLean, the birdman of the Senate.