226 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 429 



hares, rabbits, and other small game, even in the immediate 

 neighborhood of populous Germau villages. The peasant 

 farmer is satisfied with a system which secures to him a full 

 cash value for all the game which his land may produce, as 

 well as prompt payment for whatever damage the same may 

 inflict upon his crops, and at the same time protects his fields 

 from trespass by unauthorized persons or at seasons whea 

 the grain and gi-ass might be injured thereby, for the game- 

 laws carefully prohibit field-shooting until such crops are 

 gathered. 



An important feature of toe protective system is the law 

 which forbids any person from hunting or using a gun un- 

 less he is provided with the legal Jagdpass, or license. This 

 license is issued by the local magistrate in each district to 

 applicants of good standing, who must be not less than eigh- 

 teen years of age, and, if under twenty-one years, must be 

 -vouched for by some responsible person. The pass is for one 

 year, costs from seventy-five cents to three dollars, according 

 to the varying regulations of the different provinces, and 

 hears on its reverse side a checkered design showing the open 

 and close months of the year for each kind of game. To be 

 found outside of one's own premises with a rifle or fowling- 

 piece and without a Jagdpass involves the confiscation of 

 gun and accoutrements. This arrangement effectually elimi- 

 nates the professional poacher and the predatory small-boy 

 with the cheap shot-gun, who have been so destructive to 

 singing-birds, as well as to furred and feathered game, in 

 some other countries. 



The game birds and animals of Germany include princi- 

 pally the stag, the fallow-deer and roe-deer, hares and I'ab- 

 hits, tlie capercailzie (or Auerhahn), pheasants, partridges, 

 •snipe, woodcock, wild ducks and swans, and several other 

 varieties of birds, not to speak of fish-otters, foxes, and 

 hadgers, which are killed for their fur, or because they are 

 ^destructive to fish and smaller game. 



JKeeping still in view the economic aspects of the subject, 

 the practical question would be, which of these varieties 

 might be most easily transplanted to the thickly settled por- 

 tions of the United States, and grown there under conditions 

 similar to those which exist in Germany. The climate of 

 this country does not differ essentially from that of the 

 Northern and Middle States of our Eepublic. With the ex- 

 ception that the proportion of woodland to open fields is 

 larger with us than here, and that the American farmer 

 keeps his land enclosed by fences, and lives on it instead of 

 in a neighboring village, the principal conditions are nearly 

 similar. The proportion of pasture and meadow to ploughed 

 land is greater in most American districts than in Germany, 

 hut this would be to the advantage of the game rather than 

 otherwise. In most States of the Union the laws distinctly 

 recognize the right of the land-owner to the game birds and 

 animals on his property, and enable him to defend that right 

 against trespass. There would seem to be no reason why at 

 least four of the species which are now grown so abundantly 

 for sport and profit in Germany should not be at least equally 

 successful in almost any part of the United States. These 

 are the pheasant, the gray partridge, the hare, and the roe- 

 deer, all of which live and thrive in proximity to man, 

 and may be easily transferred to any locality suitable to their 

 existence. 



The gray partridge (Rebhuhn) of northern Europe is in 

 size about midway between the quail and prairie-chicken of 

 the United States, the former of which he strongly resembles 

 in appearance and disposition. Although less beautiful than 

 the red-legged partridge of southern Europe, he is not less 



" gamy " in the field or delicious on the table, his flesh re- 

 sembling strongly that of our native quail. This species 

 lives in the open fields and meadows of Germany, even close 

 to the villages and farmhouses, and subsists at all times upon 

 food precisely similar to that of the American quail and 

 prairie-chicken. The female lays in May or early June from 

 sixteen to twenty eggs, and, if foxes, weasels, or cold, pro- 

 tracted rains destroy her young brood, she makes another 

 effort and brings forth her second hatching in July. The 

 partridge-shooting season begins in Prussia on the 1st of 

 September, by which time the young birds, except those of 

 the second hatchings above noted, are well feathered, strong 

 on the wing, and nearly full grown. Each brood forms a 

 covey, and, like the prairie-chicken, they are at first tame 

 and comparatively easy shooting, but with experience and 

 the advancing season they become wilder and stronger; so 

 that, although they are always "game," and lie well to a 

 dog, particularly when approached from leeward, they are 

 in later October and November sufficiently difficult to satisfy 

 the most exacting sportsman. Partridges sell in the market 

 at from fifty to seventy-five cents each, and, although killed 

 in immense numbers, are always in demand. It is no un- 

 usual thing in this region to kill during a season two or three 

 hundred birds on a farm not exceeding a hundred and fifty 

 acres in extent; and there are several preserves in the open 

 fields along the Ehine, between Mayence and Mannheim, 

 where the average annual score exceeds a thousand. 



It is, of course, quite at variance with American or Eng- 

 lish ideas for a sportsman to sell his game or consider in 

 any way its market value, but in Germany no such squeam- 

 ishness prevails. The product of each day's hunt, except 

 what the master wants for his own use or chooses to present 

 to friends, goes to the game-dealer, who has a standing con- 

 tract with the sportsman to take his entire product at prices 

 agreed upon in advance, and which are rigidly adhered to. 



Until within a few years most sportsmen who leased shoot- 

 ings in this part of Germany could pay their rent and hire 

 of gamekeeper, and even save a profit, from the proceeds of 

 their game. This enabled many men of limited means to 

 lease lands which would have been quite beyond the reach 

 of their unaided private incomes, and thus practically the 

 whole territory — woods, field, marsh, and mountain — was 

 then, as now, leased for shooting purposes. But, with the 

 rapid increase of wealth and" the growth of the class of men 

 able to afford the luxury of hunting, the competition for the 

 best grounds has become so sharp that the rental has ad- 

 vanced enormously within a short period, so that compara- 

 tively few shooting leases are now self-supporting; that is, 

 paying by sales of game the cost of rent, game-keeper, and 

 damage by game to growing crops. Many shooting privi- 

 leges in this region which were leased at auction during the 

 past year have brought three times the rental of the previous 

 lease made six years ago, and some communes now pay their 

 local and national taxes from the revenues thus easily ob- 

 tained. When it is considered how burdensome taxation has 

 become to the German peasantry, the advantage of being 

 able to pay this obligation in hares, partridges, and pheasants 

 grown spontaneously on their lands will be at once ap- 

 parent. 



The pheasant of Germany is identical with that of Eng- 

 land, France, and Austria, and is an exotic in Europe, hav- 

 ing been brought many centuries ago from its native haunts 

 in the Himalayan districts of India, by way of Asia Minor, 

 into European Turkey, Austria, and particularly Bohemia, 

 where it is now found wild in immense numbers. The 



