144 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



of the year when the migrants are practically absent, and they prohibit 

 us from hunting them during the seasons when they are present in our 

 locality. * * * In the winter months they [the ducks and geese] are 

 farther south." 



I do not propose to waste one word in proving the untruth- 

 fulness of that assertion ; but I offer a pictorial exhibit that 

 tells its own story. The month of January is one of the 

 open-season months all over the Missouri area. I invite 

 attention to the accompanying illustration showing 515 

 ducks and geese over the lowlands of the Missouri, near 

 Atchison, Kansas, and only 34 miles north of Kansas City, 

 in the despised month of January, 1914. 



Again we quote the language of the "petition" to Con- 

 gress : 



"We have offered positive physical evidence, contained in the dead 

 bodies of ducks, to prove that they [the ducks of Missouri] are not even 

 approximating the breeding or nesting period in February or March, nor 

 do they at any other season breed in this section of the Nation" 



In rebuttal we first place on the witness stand a man 

 whose testimony no man will attempt to impeach, — Dr. Geo. 

 W. Field, formerly State Game Commissioner of Massa- 

 chusetts, and now president of the National Association of 

 Conservation Commissioners. In a letter dated June 5, 

 Dr. Field says : 



"Am just in from a field trip, made for the purpose of determining 

 beyond question whether migratory ducks do actually now breed in Kan- 

 sas. Many people claim that they will not breed so far south. 



"It was a hurried trip, made necessarily without adequate preparation 

 and knowledge of the ground. However, even under these conditions, I 

 flushed in seven hours' work two blue-winged teal, — nests contained on 

 June 2, nine and twelve eggs respectively; also flushed a brood of mal- 

 lards at least two weeks old. I caught one to ascertain age. I also 

 flushed a brood of pin-tails. I caught three of the flappers for the same 

 purpose. I estimated their age as five days. It is not an easy matter 

 to hunt wild ducks' nests in grass, bushes and mud, but I saw enough 

 to satisfy me that a large number of ducks are breeding in this tract, 

 which I estimate from the map contains about 90,000 acres, and in which 

 in the seven hours' search I covered a random path possibly four miles 

 long. 



"In addition to these birds which were beyond question breeding, I 

 identified with glasses (but I lost track of the actual number, they were 

 so numerous), at least 100 pairs of shovellers, 50 pairs of pin-tails, 50 

 pairs of mallards, 75 pairs of blue-winged teal, 20 pairs of Gadwalls, all 

 of which were obviously mated, and from their actions I inferred to have 

 nests or young. In addition I identified one greater scaup male, several 



