524 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



which have been devoted to their naturalization in fos- 

 tering and increasing our stock of native game birds." 



The turning loose of foreign birds to take care of 

 themselves in a climate to which they are unaccustomed 

 and among conditions more or less different from those 

 in which their ancestors have lived, is not likely soon to 

 make much difference in our shooting. A few hundred 

 birds turned loose in a township or a county would 

 have to increase enormously before they would be suf- 

 ficiently numerous to make the shooting good. Every- 

 one killed would reduce the breeding stock, the process 

 of reproduction would be slow and the final results, even 

 if favorable, might not be important for a generation. 



Besides this, there are serious possible dangers in 

 the turning loose of foreign birds. There are some 

 reasons for thinking that these foreign birds carry with 

 them the germs of certain diseases to which they them- 

 selves are immune, but which may be communicated to 

 our native birds with fatal results. It is believed by 

 some investigators that the domestic fowl carries with 

 it the germs of a disease which is fatal to the turkey, 

 and to our quail and grouse, although the young of the 

 hen do not suffer from it. 



Many examples might be cited of the danger of intro- 

 ducing into a new land an animal, harmless in its own 

 home, but which when transported to a country where 

 conditions are especially favorable to its existence and it 

 finds few or no enemies, has increased to such an ex- 

 tent as to become a nuisance, if not a public menace. 

 The cases of the rabbit in Australia, of the English spar- 



