THE GAME BREEDER 



53 



as all our young men did. The new in- 

 dustry has a boom now and the readers 

 who contribute the most interesting mat- 

 ter to the pages of the magazine will 

 make their paper better than ever. There 

 is so much freedom in some of the states 

 that an immense amount of game soon 

 will be produced and the states which 

 appear to be far behind the times no 

 doubt will wake up and get live game 

 officers when the people see the game 

 passing through in one direction and the 

 money going through in the other direc- 

 tion to the producers, and when the 

 sportsmen hear how good the shooting 

 is in the free states. We expect to ex- 

 hibit the good shooting to some non-resi- 

 dents in several places and to send them 

 home prepared to get busy. 



The Long Island Game Breeders 

 Association. 



The Long Island Game Breeders As- 

 sociation now has a variety of state and 

 national permits to possess and breed 

 game and to trap birds for breeding pur- 

 poses. 



The new game keeper, J. H. Wise, has 

 had a wide experience, not only with 

 pheasants and ducks, but also with 

 American game birds on preserves in the 

 South. Numerous cats and others have 

 had good cause to regret his coming to 

 Long Island. 



In a large number of aviaries the 

 Scaled or Blue quail, Gambel's quail, 

 Bob Whites and pheasants are in the 

 pink of condition. Many hens already 

 are setting on wild duck eggs in the 

 hatching boxes in the orchard, and al- 

 though the ducks are only a side line on 

 this farm, which is devoted especially 

 to quail and pheasants, it seems likely 

 a few hundred wild duck will be raised. 



Some of the ducks which were in the 

 habit of making long flights, remaining 

 away for a day at a time, were trapped 

 and clipped in order to see that they did 

 not nest outside of the preserve. 



The Association undoubtedly has the 

 largest collection of Scaled quail, Gam- 

 bel's quail and Bob Whites ever assem- 

 bled for hand-rearing purposes and since 

 the quail left out after the shooting last 

 season have evidently survived the win- 

 ter and their natural enemies and are 



heard whistling on all sides, it seems 

 likely that a good crop may be harvested 

 in the proper manner and "not other- 

 wise," next autumn. 



The special plantings of alternate 

 strips of corn and buckwheat made the 

 ground very attractive to the quail and 

 many birds evidently wintered in a 

 wild state quite near the house. 



The doves seem to be increasing in 

 numbers and in fact coming back in 

 good numbers and it is to be hoped be- 

 fore long these excellent birds can be 

 served on the club table and taken home 

 as food. The martins are busy arranging 

 their boxes ; the robins and bluebirds 

 have arrived, and these will be followed, 

 no doubt, by the meadow larks and nu- 

 merous songsters and weed seed eaters 

 which seem to respond better to practical 

 game protection and an abundance of 

 food than they ever were known to re- 

 spond to numerous laws. The interest- 

 ing work will be observed by many visi- 

 tors during the breeding season. 



The Beneficial Owl. 



The game keeper of the Long Island 

 Game Breeders' Association trapped a 

 few dozen rats and mice and placed them 

 on a bench in the barn which was closed 

 for the night. In the morning all of the 

 rats and mice excepting one were gone, 

 A small window was open and he says 

 the owls undoubtedly took the food. No 

 cat or other animal could have taken the 

 rats and mice since several dogs were 

 sleeping in the barn, and the evidence 

 seems conclusive that the beneficial owls 

 were the visitors. Some screech owls 

 live near the house and barn and are 

 heard nightly. They are not molested 

 since the game keeper agrees with us 

 that they do not harm the game. These 

 owls, no doubt, will increase in numbers 

 since there seems to be no end to the 

 rats and mice, which evidently come 

 from neighboring places. 



■ ♦ — 



Small Hawks. 



The evidence in favor of the small 

 owls is not so conclusive concerning the 

 small hawks. Why these birds should 

 sit on trees and apparently admire the 

 quail in the aviaries if they have no in- 

 terest in such birds is not apparent. A 



