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THE OSPREY. 



Club Grounds as Bird Reserves, 



BY OTTO WIDMANN. 



^ ARM bird lovers, 

 not acquainted 

 with the scope 

 and methods of 

 a Hunting- Club 

 are liable to reg-ard 

 it as an unmitig-ated 

 evil, created for the 

 sole purpose of de- 

 stroying- bird life. 

 A careful study of 

 the clubs in the vicinity of St. Louis, 

 more particularly those of the marshes of 

 St. Charles County, 25-50 miles north of 

 St. Louis, shows that the lover of bird 

 life has reason to look upon them with 

 favor rather than with scorn, and even 

 to wish that all g-rounds frequented by 

 waterfowl would be in the hands of well- 

 reg-ulated hunting- clubs. Such clubs 

 usually consist of from twenty to forty 

 members, who acquire the sole rig-ht to 

 hunt on certain g-rounds, on which they 

 erect a clubhouse, and from which they 

 keep all trespassers by wire fences, post- 

 ers and mounted watchmen. For this 

 rig-ht they pay quite a sum of money to 

 the owners of the g-round, some of whom 

 derive a handsome income therefrom. 

 Others have boug-ht outrig-ht the princi- 

 pal part of their hunting- g-rounds, there- 

 by obtaining- full control, of importance 

 especially in reg-ard to drainag-e, pastur- 

 ag-e and cultivation. 



While the ordinary pot-hunter slaug-h- 

 ters the g-ame wherever and whenever he 

 can, without reg-ard to the future, the 

 club has laid out rules, which, when fol- 

 lowed, assure a continuous supply of 

 g-ame, not only throug-hout the season, 

 but also in the future. Nig-ht shooting- 

 is never practiced on club g-rounds, and 

 some clubs do not shoot ducks before 

 eig-ht o'clock in the morning-, because 

 if molested in the early morning-, the 

 ducks are liable to quit the g-rounds and 

 return no more. The best results are 

 obtained by those who do not shoot at all 

 in the forenoon. On these g-rounds the 

 ducks and g-eese are fed on corn, and 

 it has been found that, when the birds 

 are allowed to have their fill in the morn- 

 ing-, even repeated attacks and great 



losses do not drive them from the 

 g-rounds; the}' g-o up eind fly about for 

 awhile, but descend in another part of 

 the lake, and ultimately return to their 

 old feeding- grounds. 



In feeding them, corn in the ear is 

 scattered over a shallow portion of the 

 lake, where by tilting ducks can reach 

 the bottom. These well-fed ducks and 

 geese do good service as voluntary de- 

 coys, and very few flocks pass over with- 

 out alighting. On March 19, 1895, I 

 v/itnessed a nice piece of decoy work. 

 At 3:15 p. m. a party of five Canada 

 (icese came straightways from the south 

 and were greeted by a host of voices 

 from the lake, but passed on. Presently 

 two geese left the lake and ioined 



SCKEECH OWL, KED PHASE- 

 From raiiifi?tgb\' Louis Agassiz Fuertes, 



