T¥. Game Breeder 



Published Monthly. Entered as second-class matter, Jul/ g, 1915, at the Post Office, New York 1 City, 



New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 



VOLUME XI 



AUGUST, J9J7 



Co]) 



SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 



NUMBERS 5 



Quail in Iowa. 



E. C. Hinshaw, the fish and game 

 warden of Iowa, says, "The prospects 

 are that a large number of quail will be 

 raised. Quail are quite plentiful where 

 conditions are favorable, but unless the 

 natural cover is to be had they do not 

 live through an ordinary winter,' but 

 where they do have the proper cover 

 they will live through all except the ex- 

 treme winters. By providing feed and 

 shelter we have saved thousands of quail 

 from starving and freezing. « A fat quail 

 that has good shelter seldom dies from 

 cold. It is the quail that have not had 

 proper feed, get poor and lose their 

 vitality that die." 



Quail and Weed Seeds. 



Mr. Hinshaw says, "After years of 

 study and thousands upon thousands of 

 quail have been killed for the purpose 

 of examination, we find that they de- 

 stroy eighty-five dififerent weed seeds. 

 Rag weed and pig weed are among those 

 that the quail destroy in large numbers. 

 Also large numbers of insects, all of 

 which are true statements and are the 

 actual findings by those who have made 

 the examinations, but now comes the ex- 

 aggeration. A ten cent piece is made to 

 look like from $5 to $25, according to 

 some of the learned experts, and right 

 here is where some of our progressive 

 farmers and thinking men do some fig- 

 uring of their own. They take the num- 

 ber of pig weed seed, for instance, that 

 a quail destroys ; they divide the number 

 of seeds that one plant will produce and 

 they find that a single pig weed plant 

 will furnish feed for a quail several 



days, then they take the number of quail 

 that it would take to make a noticeable 

 difference in weeds on their farm and 

 find that it would require an unthinkable 

 number to do the same amount of weed 

 destruction that a dollar's worth of cul- 

 tivation would do." 



Insect Reasoning. 



"Then the insect question comes in for 

 some reasoning. There are those who 

 remember the early days when the birds 

 had not been destroyed by any unnatural 

 cause, and the early settlers were driven, 

 out by the grasshoppers, the locust, etc. 

 Then as the country finally settled up the 

 birds commenced to disappear and also 

 the grasshoppers and other insects. Thert 

 what does it all mean ? It simply means 

 this, that the birds do destroy, but in 

 .such small numbers in proportion to the 

 number of insects in existence that the 

 decrease in birds has no noticeable effect 

 on insect life, and there are other rea- 

 sons, many of which we cannot explain 

 here for want of space. A few will 

 suffice. 



"The world was created on the plan 

 of the survival of the fittest, which is 

 practically true of all living things. Bug 

 and insect life prey upon the smaller and 

 weaker. What has this to do with quail ? 

 It has this, the bugs and beetles found in 

 the quail's crop would have destroyed 

 thousands of small insects had the quail 

 not destroyed them." 



The Quail a Food Bird. 



The Iowa warden well says, "No, the 

 quail should not be taken from the game 



