THE GAME BREEDER 



111 



PHEASANTS AND QUAIL. 



By Helen Bartlett, With a Note by the Editor. 



Miss Helen Bartlett, a skillful game breeder, 

 in a letter to Forest and Stream, says : "Read- 

 ing in your last issue, I find a letter from Mr. 

 Griffith, Columbus, Ohio, dated April 10th, in 

 ■ which he gives the views of General Speaks, 

 the game warden of Ohio, on the subject, 'Is 

 the Mongolian pheasant a menace to the native 

 game birds of the State, especially the quail?' 

 I feel that it is due you that I should give you 

 the facts within my knowledge on this propo- 

 sition. 



"I am no doubt the largest and most suc- 

 cessful raiser of game birds and quail in this 

 part of the country. My Ringneck and Mon- 

 golian pheasants are penned in compartments 

 fenced with two-inch poultry netting. These 

 pens, holding the pheasants, run in a square 

 about a field that we use for general gardening. 

 My quail are turned loose in this garden field. 

 They are not pinioned and their wings are not 

 clipped. They come and go from the garden 

 at their pleasure. We are accustomed to feed- 

 ing them in the evening, and a great many of 

 them always gather in from the outside alfalfa 

 and other fields of the farm for the sweets 

 that we throw to them. 



"In going from their garden, they must fly 

 over or run through the pheasant pens, and as 

 a consequence they usually pass through the 

 pens, because they are averse to flying when 

 running or walking will accomplish their pur- 

 pose. They frequently remain in the pens with 

 the pheasants all day. There is not a time 

 when I go into the pheasant pens but what I 

 find quail in some of them. I have never 

 known a quail to be hurt by a pheasant and I 

 have never known a pheasant to attack one. 

 They eat together and appear to be either on 

 the most friendly terms or indifferent to each 

 other. 



"These statements of mine can be verified, 

 if you desire to have them verified, by the Hon. 

 Wm. R. Oates, Commissioner of Fish and 

 Game of the State of Michigan, and by his 

 deputies, Messrs. Jones, Hunter and Condon, 

 who recently visited my place and spent a 

 pleasant half day with me among the birds. 

 Mr. Oates on that occasion stated to me that 

 it was indeed a convincing surprise to him, 

 after all he had read on the subject, to see the 

 pheasants and the quail in such close and peace- 

 ful association." 



Miss Barlett writing to The Game 

 Breeder says : 



"As to the quail. I have reference to 

 the Blue Valley quail. I have one partic- 

 ular pen about 40 feet by 100 feet con- 

 taining 15 Ringneck hens; it is sodded 

 with white clover and I often see from 



four to ten or twelve quail in this pen. 

 They eat of Spratts game food and the 

 grains given at night. I often put out 

 "corn bread" crumbled fine and this, they 

 devour readily, I think because it always 

 has sugar in it and it is the corn bread I 

 termed "sweets" in the letter you refer 

 to. I have never seen a pheasant mo- 

 lest them in any way. They seem to 

 like them and even during the breeding 

 season the quail and male Ringnecks 

 eat side by side off of the same board. 

 I am sure if there was any tendency to 

 be quarrelsome the quail would not fre- 

 quent the pheasant pens, and some time 

 we would see the results of such en- 

 counters." 



We had a somewhat similar experi' 

 ence at the preserve of The Game Breed- 

 ers' Association on Long Island, N. Y. 

 Some quail which had been placed on 

 arrival in an old hen house soon ap- 

 peared to be affected by a disease and 

 some died. I immediately ordered the 

 birds liberated and many of them 

 remained in and around the garden back 

 of a large pheasant pen. The quail soon 

 after liberation seemed to be entirely free 

 from the complaint which had begun to 

 decimate them. 



I often saw quail in the pheasant pen 

 and when alarmed they took wing and 

 flew through the overhead wire much to 

 my surprise, since the openings were just 

 large enough for a quail to pass through 

 with its wings closed. The birds whirred 

 up to the openings evidently closed their 

 wings as they passed through the small 

 openings, then the whirring continued. 

 Upon one occasion when I was standing 

 near the pen with a visitor to the preserve 

 he noticed the quail and I told him they 

 could fly out through the wire netting 

 over the pen. He expressed surprise at 

 this but a few moments later, when our 

 backs were turned, a quail which we had 

 been observing took wing, whirred up to 

 the wire and made it ring as it passed 

 through. We turned quickly just as the 



