CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 509 



assume that each pair of Bob-whites can produce ten young 

 in a year, that each pair breeds only once in its Hfetime, that 

 the length of life of the species is ten years, and that the progeny 

 of a single pair were all preserved to live until the tenth year 

 we should have at the end of ten years twenty-four million four 

 hundred fourteen thousand and sixty birds. 



The increase of ten birds from each pair is a very moderate 

 one, as a female Quail in confinement has been known to lay 

 more than one hundred eggs in one season, nearly all of which 

 were fertile, and the probability is that a pair of Quail will 

 breed for several years, whereas our computation is based 

 upon only one brood during the lifetime of each pair. The 

 above increase in numbers merely gives possibilities. When- 

 ever the mind of man solves the problem of propagation, 

 some slight approach to such multiplication may be realized. 



Man can assist the wonderful reproductive and recupera- 

 tive powers of nature, and the time will come — and that 

 soon — when he will have solved the problem of reproducing 

 certain species of game in unlimited quantities. Patient, single- 

 minded research, followed by applied science, will stock the 

 world again with such species of game birds and mammals 

 as will adapt themselves readily to the methods of the 

 propagator. 



There is no limit to the productive capacity of nature 

 except the bounds set by nature herself, and man will learn 

 eventually to so control conditions that even those bounds will 

 be forced back. The time is coming when millions of game 

 birds will be propagated in this country. But it is probable 

 that comparatively few species will prove available for this 

 purpose, and that all the other species will require stringent 

 protection. Most of the species of the order Limicoloe, which 

 includes the Snipe, Woodcock, Sandpipers and Plovers, rear 

 but few young, and many species may soon require protection 

 at all times to save them from extinction; while, on the other 

 hand, we may be able to multiply indefinitely certain Grouse, 

 Bob-whites, Ducks and Geese. First, as a basis for game pro- 

 tection, we must understand thoroughly the causes of game 

 destruction. 



