10 THE GAME BREEDER 



On our new farm here all these birds the rarer varieties of pheasants so that 



have large ponds and many acres of you can see the difference between it and 



land to roam over, and it is very hard the ordinary domestic poultry food which 



for us to locate all the nests of the wild is generally used which "turns their toes 



ducks, and especially so of the nests of to the daisies" sooner or later, 

 the different varieties of teal. I have I will send you some photos of my 



always had splendid luck in raising the vermin trap later. I consider this kind 



Ruddy ducks, especially the European, of trap positively the best thing that has 



Some of these build their nests three or ever been invented for this particular 



four feet in the earth around the banks business, and I can assure you that I 



of the ponds, but last year I succeeded would not be able to run this farm 



in getting a good many of the Ruddys successfully without them. They catch 



to build their nests in open ended boxes raccoons, minks, skunks, weasels, pos- 



somewhat like the ones we use for wood sums, rats and cats. These traps will 



ducks. catch old rats around buildings when all. 



My success in raising nearly all the other traps fail. There is hardly a day 



rarer varieties of pheasants and ducks during the year that my men don't bring 



is due to a great extent to my being in several head of vermin after making 



able to furnish them with the proper the rounds of these traps. I use them 



kinds of food not alone during the breed- mostly on the boundary fences which on 



ing season, but during the winter months, our new farm runs miles without a break 



Nearly all of the rarer and expensive in them. It takes nearly all one man's 



varieties of pheasants which are kept in time to keep down the yermin here and 



the different zoological parks throughout even then we have disastrous losses from 



the world die for want of the correct time to time. 



kind of food. For instance, the Trago- By the end of this year we expect to 



pans, Monauls and other high altitude have the farm nearly completed, and I 



birds seldom survive in these zoos over can assure you it will be a peach when 



two years, but if properly fed they will we get through with it. . We have our 



live from five to ten years and even own railroad tracks and private freight 



longer. station on the farm, which makes it very 



I am sending you under separate cover handy and inexpensive for handling our 



a sample of the correct food for feeding feed and the shipping out of live stock. 



CAT TALES. 



Told by E. H. Forbush, Massachusetts State Ornithologist. 



Destroys a Universal Pest. before her aunt's rising hour the cat 



The United States Department of brought in a nice fat robin, unharmed, 



Agriculture has made a study of the and penned it in the corner of the 



economic value of the quail and has kitchen, apparently as a gift for the aunt, 



found that it is virtually the only bird Although the bird always was set free 



which devours that universal pest, the the cat continued to catch one each 



potato bug. morning having first caught its own 



= breakfast. It would be interesting to 



Robins for Breakfast. know how many birds that cat ate that 



Miss Helen Winslow says that her season beside those that it brought in. 



aunt in Greenfield had a cat that was = 



in the habit of catching his own break- Fecundity of the Cat. 



fast early each summer morning before Cats are known to have from two to 



the family was up — a very common habit four broods yearly, with from five to 



by the way. Invariably, she says, just nine in each brood. Fostered and pro- 



