THE GAME BREEDER 



13 



trapshooting contest, and also the 1915 

 Yale College trapshooting team, which 

 won the championship last year. When 

 Mr. Stevens' ability as a shooter comes 

 up, one has but to refer to the official 

 trapshooting records for the past several 

 years to appreciate his true worth, and 

 men who have shot with him in the field 

 and from the blinds and shooting boxes 

 will tell you that his aim is deadly — in 

 fact he seldom misses. . 



In inaugurating this new school, the 

 DuPont Company believes that it will 

 prove a boon to every sportsman who 

 visits Atlantic City, and will also fill a 

 long felt want on the part of those who 

 have desired to learn to shoot under the 



tutelage of a competent instructor, such 

 as Mr. Stevens. From time to time 

 events will be arranged for groups of 

 shooters who may be at the seaside re- 

 sort, and team races and trophy events 

 staged. Local shooters will also have 

 events arranged for them, or may ar- 

 range their own events, and shoot them 

 over the school traps. In fact, Mr. Ste- 

 vens will see to it personally that every- 

 thing possible is done to make the visit 

 of sportsmen to Atlantic City as pleasant 

 as .possible, and sportsmen and sports- 

 women everyhwere are extended a cor- 

 dial invitation to call and see him at 

 Young's Million Dollar Pier after March 

 15th. 



MORE LEAD POISONING. 



By Feed D. Hoyt. 



This is written in response to Mr. W. 

 L. Finley's article, "Lead Poisoned Mal- 

 lards," in your January issue And I 



Stomach of a captive mallard which died on her nest the 

 day she hatched her ducklings. 



wish to congratulate Mr. Finley, whom 

 I know personally, on his successful wild 

 life pictures, which I had the pleasure 

 of seeing at the University of California. 



Mr. Finley is a thorough conservationist 

 with no selfish ways — one of the many 

 men and societies which responded to 

 my appeal for help to get the compulsory 

 teaching of bird life in the public schools 

 of California, which I am very happy to 

 say has become a law in this State. 



While Mr. Finley has told you the 

 conditon in which the ducks were found, 

 and touched briefly on other data, I will 

 endeavor to quote a few facts, as I have 

 studied them for the past twenty-five 

 years. That the Mallard duck will eat 

 anything that is solid, from a small gravel 

 stone to a ten-penny nail, will be seen 

 from the accompanying photograph. This 

 is the stomach of a captive Mallard which 

 died on her nest on the day that she 

 hatched her clutch of ducklings. Just to 

 show how strong is the tendency of 

 nature to reproduce itself, this duck had 

 been dying five weeks, and seemed only 

 to wait until her eggs were hatched, as 

 when I removed the stomach, which had 

 at last been punctured by a three-inch 

 steel nail, the inside cavity of the bird 

 was filled with blood. 



The stomach, which I have had pre- 

 served in a bottle for three years, and 

 bad photographed, contained eleven steel 

 nails, from the size of a small brad, to 



