THE GAME BREEDER 



177 



tainment of our dreams, I trust we may have 

 the benefit of your personal experience in 

 those parts of the United States where the 

 "proper methods" have brought the "tremen- 

 dous abundance" we desire. 



I was not a little disappointed to find in the 

 copy of The Game Breeder forwarded by Mr. 

 MacDonald that portions of "The Prairie 

 Chicken" (together with two of the cuts) had 

 been printed in a way that, to the casual 

 reader, if not to all, must needs give an en- 

 tirely false impression. I tak€ it that, although 

 portions only have apparently been culled for 

 publication in your journal, you have perused 

 the entire context. In your December article 

 over my name, entiled by you "The Enemies 

 of the Grouse of the Open Country," you 

 have entirely eliminated my remarks as to 

 man's destruction of grouse. In the face of 

 your editorial comment this is most mislead- 

 ing. I pointed out in the "Prairie Chicken" 

 that man was the outstanding destroyer. I 

 stated that "a growing scarcity of game must 

 be expected in settled regions." In these con- 

 tentions I was incontrovertibly correct — the 

 Game Conservation Society not withstanding. 

 I regret that you saw fit to make it appear 

 that I claimed the crow, goshawk and coyote 

 to be the chief enemies of our prairie grouse, 

 whereas these were cited by me as accessories 

 to man as a destroyer. My claim that as por- 

 tions of the country become settled by inten- 

 sive farming and the consequent destruction 

 of natural covers and nesting grounds takes 

 place, a scarcity of game must be expected, is 

 a fact supported by ail rational authorities on 

 game protection. May J ask why the heath 

 hen has come so dangerously near extinction, 

 and this in the face of frantic efforts, for 

 many years, to save it? Settlement and its 

 consequences must give the answer again. 

 Editorially you, remind me that whereas I 

 noted the divergence of opinion as to the 

 cause of the decrease of prairie chicken, and 

 whereas I anticipated the controversy which 

 must surround anyone who might attempt to 

 arrive at a conclusive verdict, you were ready 

 to come to the rescue by telling me upon re- 

 quest why the grouse vanish. Why not volun- 

 teer the reason? Had you printed my com- 

 plete treatise in one issue of your journal or 

 even had you shown that portion printed in 

 your December number as being part of a 

 continued article, there would have been no 

 grounds for the attempted "rescue," since my 

 article deals pretty fully with every phase of 

 the scarcity of grouse, including prairie fires 

 and loss of winter food, and brings out the 

 fact that the grouse have chiefly vanished 

 from the destructive methods employed by 

 man. Your editorial quotations from Darwin 

 merely corroborate what I stated in my bro- 

 chure, but are used in a sense to put me right. 



Again, you state editorially that "We have 

 never seen any occasion for the wonder, spec- 

 ulation and argument to which Mr. Turner 

 refers. Mr. Turner is wrong in saying there 

 is no one who would care to assume the risky 



honor of deciding what is the matter with the 

 American grouse." Please let me say again, 

 that were you, Mr. Editor, free to spend 

 twelve months here, you would be nonplussed 

 by the complexity of arguments on the sub- 

 ject; and I venture to say that neither The 

 Game Breeder nor its editor, nor the Game 

 Conservation Society are at this present mo- 

 ment in a position to "forward a solution 

 which, zvill amount to a perfectly satisfactory 

 demonstration," if asked to explain the fact 

 that whereas as late as three years ago native 

 grouse of all kinds were plentiful in the huge 

 area of the Riding Mountain Preserve in 

 Manitoba, where no gun has been carried, no 

 trapping has been done and no hunting has 

 occurred in six years, only one single ruffed 

 was observed. 



[We cannot say what disasters of the past 

 are due to, in any case, without having the 

 necessary facts. Had there been a game 

 keeper On the ground he would have told to a 

 certainty what happened. Probably nature's 

 balance was upset in some manner, most likely 

 by an overabundance of natural enemies when 

 compared with the game. This may have been 

 due to shooting at some period, possibly at a 

 time when it was supposed not to occur. What 

 we are able to demonstrate is the proper 

 method for making any area so safe and at- 

 tractive that no disasters will occur of suffi- 

 cient importance to put an end to the shoot- 

 ing. Our quail breeders shoot year after year, 

 in some places thousands of birds each season. 

 The grouse breeders in Scotland shoot thou- 

 sands of grouse every season and the only 

 serious trouble we have heard of was due to 

 an over-abundance of game which resulted 

 in disease. Some of the big Hungarian breed- 

 ers can shoot many partridges and also sell 

 thousands alive for propagation every season. 

 The methods by which such abundance is 

 maintained are well known and we have plenty 

 of literature on this subject written by cap- 

 able pens. 



Having successfully produced several thou- 

 .sand wild ducks on a place we were obliged 

 to make the pond, and having enjoyed the 

 shooting, we feel confident that it would be 

 an easier matter to make the prairie chickens 

 tremendously abundant and to keep them so 

 provided the subject be handled by proper 

 methods. Mr. Turner should forget all about 

 the "lobbying stage, " to which he refers. This 

 would indicate that he expects to make the 

 grouse plentiful by some more legislation. If 

 he will form a grouse club and let us send 

 him the game keepers he soon will see the 

 grouse plentiful and the shooting good on any 

 suitable area, even quite near a city or town. 

 Since thousands of game birds can be shot 

 year after year on places quite near New 

 York, in a region where one-tenth of the en- 

 tire population of the United States resides, 

 no good reason can be assigned why thousands 

 of birds should not be produced and shot on 

 any suitable area in Manitoba. We were 



