THE LEGITIMATE USE OF GAME 99 



sensibly protected, they mil come back so rapidly 

 and so thoroughly that we will not need to look 

 abroad for substitutes. But half-way or quarter- 

 way measures will not serve. They require long 

 close seasons, and to become effective those close 

 seasons must be granted immediately! 



During the past year a fine case of retributive 

 justice developed in Iowa. The state legislature 

 was virtually in the act of passing a law to give 

 Iowa quail a much-needed five-year close season; 

 but a new and ignorant state game warden elected 

 to block that legislation, and he successfully did so. 

 Then, in the plenitude of his wisdom, he undertook 

 to hatch and rear a great number of pheasants, to 

 use in stocking the empty covers of the state; and 

 I am glad to say that his pheasant-breeding opera- 

 tions were a complete failure. 



Nevertheless, pheasant raising, which began on 

 the Pacific coast in 1881, has proven successful in 

 several states, particularly in Oregon, Washington, 

 New York and Massachusetts. If the farmers of 

 the states named had elected to have given to their 

 quail and grouse the same protection that they 

 cheerfully accorded the introduced pheasants, those 

 species would to-day be ten times more abundant 

 than the pheasants of foreign ancestry. 



The transplantation of any wild-animal or wild- 

 bird species from one country to another is a leap in 

 the dark. About one-half the efforts made in that 

 direction have been beneficial, and the other half 



