58-1 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



months, and one individual has lived in the Bo- 

 tanical Garden and the Zoological Park during 

 the past two years, summer and winter, — find- 

 ing its own food. 



The Cardinal is common in Central Park but 

 almost unknown in the surrounding country, and 

 Chapman records the Mockingbird as breeding 

 for several years in succession at Tenafly. New 

 Jersey. 



WHOLESALE REARING OF PHEASANTS. 



THE rearing of game-birds for the stocking 

 of preserves and for the beauty which their 

 splendid plumage adds to wood and meadow 

 of country estates is an industry which is rapid- 

 ly growing and, from an economic standpoint, 

 becoming of more and more importance. The 

 Department of Agriculture will soon publish a 

 Bulletin devoted to Pheasant Propagation, and 

 from many states pamphlets and reports are 

 constantly being received, showing how wide- 

 spread is the interest. 



In New York State a farm of two hundred 

 acres near Sherburne has been acquired by the 

 State Game Commission for the purpose of 

 propagating game birds. Mr. H. T. Rogers, a 

 practical game-keeper, is in charge and informs 

 us that five hundred pairs of pheasants have al- 

 ready been purchased, it being the intention of 

 Commissioner Whipple to send out, in the 

 spring of 1910, several thousand young birds 

 and if possible fifteen thousand eggs.* These 

 eggs will be sent to farmers with a printed cir- 

 cular from the Game Commission giving explicit 

 directions as to hatching the eggs under a fowl 

 and caring for the young Pheasants afterwards. 

 In this way it is hoped to introduce the Pheas- 

 ant broadcast over the state, gaining thereby 

 not only the addition of a beautiful bird to our 

 coverts (now left so vacant by the depletion of 

 Grouse, Bob-white and Woodcock), but also a 

 splendid game-bird, and in addition valuable to 

 the farmer in feeding on injurious insects. 



This is the first state work of the kind taken 

 up in New York, but there are scores of private 

 estates where Pheasants are bred and the state- 

 ment that "tens of thousands of English Pheas- 

 ants are reared every season on Long Island, in 

 New Jersey and New York" is probably not ex- 

 aggerated. 



Mr. Bayard Thayer writes me from Lancas- 

 ter, Mass., concerning Pheasants. "I raised this 

 year about twelve hundred and have stocked the 



country about here for ten miles from the over- 

 flow, as I never shoot my coverts very hard." 



The most successful introduction of Pheasants 

 in the United States has been in the north- 

 west, where in Washington and Oregon there 

 are great numbers of Ring-necked, Golden and 

 Silver. The abundance of these birds may be 

 gauged from the fact that on the first open 

 day of hunting in one of those states, more than 

 fifty thousand Pheasants were bagged. 



To those of us who are interested in Pheas- 

 ants from an aesthetic rather than a gastronomic 

 standpoint, there remain the most wonderfully 

 colored of all — the Impeyans, Tragopans and 

 many others which are not prolific breeders, and 

 whose beauty will not therefore become blood- 

 bespattered bunches of feathers in the bag of 

 every man who can own a gun. 



It is a great pity that our native game-birds 

 are so difficult to hatch and rear in captivity 

 that they will probably never be able to compete 

 with their more prolific and adaptable Asiatic 

 cousins. 



*A record was kept several years ago by Mr. 

 Rogers of one hundred pheasant hens. During three 

 months, April, May and .Tune, they showed a yield 

 of 41)37 eggs, of which 80 to 90 per cent, hatched. 



MY AVIARY AND ITS INMATES. 

 By William H. Browning. 



Member of the New York Zoological Society and of 

 the Avicultural Society of England. 



IN England the keeping of foreign birds in 

 aviaries has long been practiced, as one can 



judge from the membership of the Avicul- 

 tural Societies of that country. 



In America the private aviary is rapidly be- 

 coming popular, and with reason, for it is a 

 hobby out of which those who are naturally fond 

 of birds can get a lot of genuine pleasure. 



Most people are fond of the singing of birds, 

 and a well-selected aviary is a musical song box. 

 Some admire birds for their plumage, while 

 others make the experiment from a scientific in- 

 terest in the breeding and rearing of rare for- 

 eign species. In a well-constructed aviary, the 

 birds are perfectly happy. 



My aviary, on my estate at Rye, New York, 

 close to the waters of the Sound, is about fifty 

 feet long by twelve in width. It is built of 

 wood somewhat in old Dutch style. It faces 

 south and the north side is placed as close as 

 we could get it to some large elm trees which 

 overshadow the roof, so that when the sun is 

 high in summer, it is not too hot inside. The 

 south side is glass for about seven feet from the 

 ground, so that a sun parlor is available in 

 winter. 



Inside the house is a passageway about four 

 feet wide which runs straight through from end 

 to end. From this the flights — and there are 

 ten of them — are divided off by ordinary § wire. 



