where the success of the experiment must be determined by the natural 

 increase from the seed birds, it is to my mind essential that the stock used 

 be as near as possible to the wild stock of Asia. 



CHINESE PHEASANT RECOMMENDED. My advice to state 

 game farms is to center their efforts on the Chinese pheasant. This 

 pheasant is the English sparrow of the game world. It is shrewd and hardy 

 and if given even half a chance will gain a footing for itself and increase 

 under any kind of fair shooting. We have no place in the United States 

 too cold for it, though there are places in the north with insufficient and 

 unsuitable food and it will not thrive in spruce or pine forests. As to its 

 southern range, experiments carried on in this country have not yet demon- 

 strated its southern limit, but the indications are that it will flourish over 

 the greater part of the United States. 



Many breeders are prejudiced in favor of the English pheasant be- 

 cause the stock is more easily obtained and also on account of its really 

 desirable characteristics. It is a larger bird, a more prolific egg producer, 

 and in other ways better adapted to the purposes of the game farm. 



On the other hand English pheasants have in degree lost the mother 

 instinct and many of the birds when released will either not set on their own 

 eggs or if they do will not successfully hatch them, and still others which 

 have brought off young broods do not know enough to take care of them and 

 in storms are content to wander off with a few members of the covey and 

 leave the rest to perish. 



Instances of all these failings can be found in the books of English 

 game keepers. It is natural that a bird which has been developed through 

 a great many generations along the specialized line of great egg produc- 

 tion, a bird which in most instances is not allowed to set on its own eggs 

 and which has not known what it is to be looked after by a mother or 

 to mother its own young, should not be an ideal bird for stocking game 

 covers. 



NEW YORK'S SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE. I have yet to learn 

 of the state which has used the Chinese pheasants for propagating pur- 

 poses which has not met with success in stocking its covers. Central New 

 York was stocked with Chinese pheasants during the six years prior to 

 1904. In this period the State Forest, Fish and Game Commission sent 

 out an average of something less than two hundred birds a year to appli- 

 cants in various counties. Of these birds Monroe County received one 

 hundred and thirty-five, which was the largest number apportioned to 

 any county. In 1909 an open season for pheasants was given in New York 

 in sixteen counties, of which Monroe was one, for cock pheasants only. A 

 number of thousands of pheasants were killed, but despite this fact an4 



