THE GAME BREEDER 



J 45 



lasted a good part of five days. Many 

 of the quail nested in places where food 

 is plentiful and it was not necessary for 

 them to move about much. Fortunately 

 the rain was a warm one without heavy 

 winds. It will be easy to determine a 

 little later what effect the storm had 

 on the game. It is probable that there 

 were some losses but that many birds 

 survived. Had the long rain been a cold 

 one, accompanied with high winds and 

 hail, there would have been a big loss 

 of young quail. 



Possibly some shelters erected in briar 

 patches and provided with food, grit and 

 dusting places would save a lot of young 

 birds. 



Casualties 

 At the Long Island Game Breeders 

 Association. 



Nine cats, some of heroic size, fell 

 dead on the field (for pheasants and 

 quail) and several were seriously 

 wounded. 



The cow broke loose and stepped on 

 a young mallard, killing it instantly. This 

 was practically the only wild duck fa- 

 tality. 



Grasshoppers, needed as a food supply 

 for the beneficial hawks, are so scarce 

 that a pigeon hawk was obliged to take 

 a young pheasant from the rearing field. 

 He dropped it when the keeper tossed his 

 hat at him. The young pheasant was 

 alive when picked up and carried to the 

 field hospital, but the wounds made by 

 the hawk's talons proved fatal. This 

 was the only loss due to hawks and 

 crows. 



All the rats on the place are dead. 

 There were many hundreds of them but 

 not a single one survived the war of 

 1919. Mice ditto. 



Several snakes have gone to the happy 

 hunting ground, if snakes go there. Their 

 earthly remains are in evidence, tacked 

 up with a lot of cat's heads and hawk 

 wings as ornaments for one end of the 

 food house. 



Wild Ducks. 



Nine wild ducks after contributing 



many eggs which were set under hens 

 stole away and nested in the grass by a 

 fence festooned with grapes. All 

 brought off fine broods of young ducks, 

 excepting two black ducks whose eggs 

 were not fertile. There were no losses 

 due to foxes, weasels, rats, hawks, 

 crows or other vermin, the only casualty 

 being the one duck lost to the cow, 

 and one pheasant. 



This speaks well for the quiet of the 

 place. The truth of the matter is vermin 

 has become scarce and wild. The re- 

 sult is large numbers of wild breeding 

 and hand-reared quail, hundreds of 

 pheasants and wild ducks. 



Quail. 



A number of bob-whites, scaled quail 

 and Gambel's quail died in the aviaries 

 where they laid numerous eggs. The 

 birds arrived in a blizzard, before the 

 keeper was on the ground, and some 

 were too weak to survive the long jour- 

 ney from Mexico and the want of proper 

 care upon their arrival. 



Pheasants. 



A few young pheasants died natural 

 deaths in the rearing field when quite 

 young, but the percentage was very 

 small, too small in fact to be noticed. A 

 healthy brood can be seen at every coop, 

 many without the loss of a single bird. 

 Considering the fact that many of the 

 birds were hatched from eggs which 

 came from other states the losses were 

 surprisingly small. 



A very few of the young hand-reared 

 quail have died ; but many of the birds 

 have not passed the danger point. The 

 appearance of the young Gambels, 

 scaled quail and bobwhites, however, 

 suggests that the losses will be very 

 small. The loss of old birds in the 

 aviaries exceeds that of the young which 

 is unusual. 



Wild Breeding Quail. 



There was only a little game left after 

 the shooting at the Long Island Game 

 Breeders' Association last season, com- 



