544 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
with a single pair kept as pets in the house. The hen 
laid 18 eggs in a nest made by the pair in a window 
cage, but since the birds did not seem inclined to in- 
cubate, the eggs were placed under a bantam hen. Of 
the 13 eggs first laid 6 hatched, but the chicks being 
left with the hen all died within ten days. Of the 
remaining 5, 3 hatched under a second hen and to 
these 5 eggs were added 11 obtained from the State 
Hatchery. Ten chicks were obtained from the 16 
eggs. Of these, 3 died by accident and showed ne 
trace of the disease of liver and ceca which has proved 
fatal to so many of our young game birds as it has to 
turkeys. The remaining 7 birds did well from Sep- 
tember to the date of this report, November, 1907. 
Eleven quail chicks just out of the incubator were 
obtained August 19th from the State Farm, were 
reared in a brooder and to date are alive and well. 
One of the great difficulties attending these efforts 
to rear native game birds has been the persistent attacks 
of vermin, and this Professor Hodge was able to wholly 
guard against during the summer of 1907. Rats were 
troublesome, a skunk killed a hen quail, and a multi- 
tude of skunks were about. Traps were kept con- 
stantly set and the results were surprising—for it must 
be remembered that Professor Hodge lives in the large 
city of Worcester. These traps caught 17 skunks and 
a great number of rats, and all these before any dam- 
age had been done by the animals. Professor Hodge 
is carrying on this interesting experimental work 
purely as a labor of love, though in 1909 a grant of 
