12 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



Almost immediately after this land had been taken over by the State 

 and thoroughly posted, an Italian was caught by the warden shooting or 

 attempting to, and was arrested and fined, had his gun taken away from 

 him and was discharged from the phosphate works. One more similar case 

 seemed a sufficient object lesson, and it practically stopped poaching on 

 the reservation. Mr. Bradley's employees began operations by shooting 

 eleven wild cats. 



The Fish and Game Commission and the Fish and Game Protective 

 Association provided me with sufficient grain every winter, and six different 

 residents on the reservation fed the quail faithfully and their increase was 

 at once noticeable and has since been almost remarkable. The Commission 

 sent us mallard ducks and pheasants, and these have increased, but not to 

 the extent the quail have. There are, perhaps, eighty houses at Crow 

 Point, which is a summer colony and is the only thickly settled residential 

 section in the reservation. Although before this sanctuary was established 

 quail were never seen there, they are very plentiful now and run all over 

 our gardens until the summer residents arrive with their cats, when they 

 go to an unsettled section. They appear again toward fall, when the birds 

 are full grown, and many of them live all winter near the houses. I 

 saw thirty-nine quail cross the road only a few rods from my house last 

 September, and, as they went in almost single file about twenty-five feet 

 in front of my car, I had no difficulty in counting them. Probably three 

 families had united. Notwithstanding our unusually cold and severe winter, 

 only one dead quail has been found, and Mr. Steel, the warden, who is 

 most indefatigable in his attention to the birds, found fourteen different 

 bevies on our reservation and thinks that none were winter-killed. That is 

 due to his care and feeding and to the others who also fed them. 



For some reason the pheasants do not seem to multiply as the quail 

 do, although more have been seen this last year than in any previous 

 year. I saw a bunch of thirteen almost full grown, and several have been 

 seen this winter, so I hope from now on they will increase. I photographed 

 a hen pheasant sitting on fifteen eggs, thirteen of which she hatched, but I 

 never found any one who had seen more than seven chicks in that locality. 

 Later I saw two cross the road, but whether the others had scattered or 

 the brood had dwindled to two I cannot say. 



These two thousand acres are really only half of the reservation, as 

 it joins immediately the Naval Magazine of one thousand acres, which, of 

 course, is guarded night and day by Marines, and that again joins the Naval 

 Training Camp of eleven hundred acres more, making a protected sanctuary 

 of four thousand acres. The State has promised to continue its protection 

 for five years more if I can get the permission of all the land-owners, and 

 I don't believe any of them will object to giving it. We have been rather 

 unfortunate in losing a great many young ducks by snapping turtles, and 

 we have been unable so far to catch the turtles. The result has been that 

 the ducks steal their nests all over the place, many of which have been 

 found by farmers and the eggs carried home to be hatched under hens. 

 Therefore mallard ducks are seen in many of the farmyards. A farmer 

 friend of mine has a mallard drake which was hatched from an egg the 

 farmer found, and although the duck's wings have not been clipped and 

 he has been at liberty to go where he would, his plumage is dull and ragged, 

 he is unable to fly and seems to have lost all his ambition and waddles 

 around among the hens a hopeless imbecile, so do the wild creatures de- 

 generate under the influences of civilization. 



