THE GAME BREEDER 179 



NOTES FROM THE GAME FARMS AND PRESERVES. 



How to Detect Vermin By Its Work, in fact any sort of eyes — he says — are 



Good game keepers when game birds, very attractive baits for jays, provided 



young and old, and eggs are destroyed the trap is skilfully hidden. But the best 



often are able to say what species of bait that I know of is a piece of the 



vermin is doing the damage before they 3^ellow fat from the interior of a fowl, 



see the culprit. = 



Upon one occasion a keeper asked the Blue Jays Beneficial. 

 editor of The Game Breeder for traps, A judicious thinning of hawks and 

 saying the owls were taking his ducks magpies is quite enough to satisfy the 

 and pheasants. When he was asked how demands of any sportsman, and their ex- 

 he knew the owls were doing the damage tinction is bound to react to the detriment 

 he replied, "every vermin leaves its of the selfish few. In many parts, too, 

 signs." The heads had been torn ofif of jays are getting comparatively scarce, 

 the dead birds. though I am glad to say that, like stoats 



Owen Jones, the talented author of and weasels, they are too cunning ever to 

 "Ten Years of Game Keeping," writing be wiped out by fair means, 

 about owlis, says: "I had shifted a No sane keeper would wish to be with- 

 batch of pheasants to covert, which an out a sprinkling of jays in his woods, 

 assistant was to look after. The man for he has no more vigilant and useful 

 came to me the morning following the sentinels. In a wood where there are 

 bird's first night in covert and said there jays, neither cat, nor fox, nor man can 

 must be stoats on the war path, for he stir without being spotted and pro- 

 had found a bird with its head off. I claimed. Jays also take a somewhat un- 

 went to investigate. There was no doubt called for delight in mobbing a barn-owl 

 about the bird's head being ofif, and the should it get abroad in the daytime. — 

 flesh was picked off the neck, which told Owen Jones, 

 me that the crime had not been com- =.,' ! 

 mitted by stoats. The body of the bird Pheasants and the Incubator, 

 lay at the edge of the ride, and at dusk Many pheasant eggs have been suc- 

 I set a trap to it, leaving instructions cessfully hatched in incubators by Dun- 

 that it was to be thrown at daybreak next can Dunn, superintendent of the New 

 morning, if necessary, so as not to catch Jersey State game farm. Mr. A. R. 

 the pheasants. When I saw my assist- Miller, superintendent of the State farm, 

 ant's face beaming with triumph, I asked Brownville, N. Y., also, has been suc- 

 him how many stoats had been caught, cessful in rearing pheasants hatched in 

 He replied: "Ne'er a one ; but we've bin incubators. During the. last sea.son he 

 and ketch'd the devil" — who turned out raised about 1,000 pheasants in this 

 to be a long-eared owl. And no more manner, 

 pheasants were decapitated. = 



= Wild Ducks and the Incubator. 



Blue Jays and Game. Since tame ducks are hatched in in- 



Owen Jones says, "In one season, in cubators and reared in big numbers 



one wood, I lost over two hundred pheas- there would seem to be no good reason 



ants' eggs, their shells (each with a neat why the eggs of wild ducks should not 



hole through which the contents had been be hatched profitably in incubators ; in 



sampled) remaining in the nests. I came fact, they have been on. some game farms 



to the conclusion that it was the work of and preserves. Mr. Dusette of Bad Axv. 



jays, and rightly, for as soon as I had Michigan, using a manirnoth incubator, 



trapped a pair of jays to pheasants' eggs hatched nearly 2,000 eggs of mallards and 



my losses entirely ceased, at which I was black ducks one season, 



not sorry." Rabbits' eyes or sheeps'— The Game Conservation Society will 



