44 Bird - Lore 



about among the boats like domesticated fowl, and will even come out on the 

 lawn near the hotel. These same ducks when out on the river beyond the "dead 

 line" are as wild as the wildest. At Lake Worth, Florida, the same conditions 

 prevail, and the Scaup ducks swimming in the lake become so confiding that they 

 may be fed from the hand. In the ponds of the Middlesex Fells Reservation near 

 Boston, Alass., where gunning is prohibited, the Black Ducks have greatly in- 

 creased and some now nest in the vicinity of Boston. When the state of New York 

 first prohibited spring shooting, breeding Black Ducks were rare on Fisher's 

 Island. A few years later there w'as good shooting on the island each fall because 

 of the ducks that were reared there. Dr. Shaw, who was rearing wild ducks near 

 New Bedford, Mass., asked the farmers near his place to post their land and pre- 

 vent shooting as a means of protecting his ducks from poachers. This was done, 

 and within two years wild black ducks began breeding on the farms all about. 



When spring shooting is prohibited by law in any state, and this provision 

 enforced, ducks that were formerly driven to Canada to breed soon begin to 

 come back and occupy their old breeding grounds. This has occurred in New- 

 York, Connecticut, Minnesota and other states. If all the states will enact laws 

 prohibiting late winter and spring shooting the wild fowl now driven out from 

 their greater breeding grounds by the occupation of the land will find smaller 

 nesting places scattered all over the northern part of the country and the 

 perpetuation of all species will be assured. 



Wild Ducks in Relation to Rice Culture 



It is now proposed by certain people in Texas to remove the legal restrictions to 

 the kilHng of wild fowl that the extermination of the birds may proceed unham- 

 pered. uThe reason given is that the wild ducks are destroying the rice crops. Let 

 us consider this proposition from the standpoint of dollars and cents. To begin 

 with, as the matter now stands and under the present statutory restrictions, there is 

 no doubt that the wild fowl now killed in the great state of Texas represent a food 

 product worth a very large sum to her people annually. If any one doubts this 

 let him scan the statements so often published in the press of Texas regarding 

 the numbers of ducks killed in one day by single individuals or by parties of 

 gunners. It is a w-ell-known fact that, at points along the southern coast, certain 

 market hunters have been killing, on an average, one hundred ducks per day each. 

 It is impossible to get exact figures regarding the numbers of ducks and geese 

 killed in any state, but we now have a means of closely approximating the number 

 of hunters. In those states that have hunting license laws for residents we find 

 that, on the average, 3 per cent of the population take out hunting licenses. This 

 does not include the entire hunting population as the farmer hunting on his own 

 land is exempted. By the census of 1900 the population of Texas is given at 

 1,578,900. Assuming that only 3 per cent of these are hunters we have 43,367 



