346 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



situation has since grown so much worse that the United 

 States Government Report for 1910 states : " Quail have 

 been reduced almost to the vanishing point in the North- 

 ern states, but are still fairly plentiful in the middle belt, 

 and moderately abundant in the South." English par- 

 tridges (imported for the market) have been on sale in 

 Chicago at $12 a dozen, and ruffed grouse at ^22 a 

 dozen. From the time when buffalo were killed for 

 their tongues alone, and the ruffed grouse ranked in 

 Massachusetts as a pest, we have come to such a pass 

 that our markets demand more and more EngUsh game 

 because we have not enough of our own. Early reck- 

 lessness in destruction, commercial greed, and the trans- 

 formation of wild into cultivated land, are named as the 

 three chief reasons for present scarcity. The states 

 have become so aroused that in 1910 only Colorado, 

 Tennessee, and Georgia were without restrictive laws of 

 some degree. The next step is an effort at domestication. 



At Storrs Agricultural College, Connecticut, the state 

 ornithologist and Professor F. H. Stoneburn, assisted 

 by Joseph Martin, a young poultry student graduate, 

 have joined hands in an effort to raise quail in domesti- 

 cation. The college has a tract of open, half-wild hill 

 land, fairly well suited to the work, and on this the 

 breeders are kept and the young brooded. But the 

 hatching progresses in the incubators, and a machine 

 brooder is doing the material work. The three enthusi- 

 astic men mentioned supply the interest and the love 

 which, if anything, joined to good sense, will make the 

 work a success. 



The first season began with the breeding birds wired 

 in a promiscuous bunch up on the hill. For weeks nothing 



