THE GAME BREEDER 



151 



ments in a garden, noted that where only 

 a few stalks of wheat were planted the 

 birds took all the seed and there was no 

 wheat the following season. Some birds 

 as well as some plants seem to rely on 

 numbers to preserve their kind. 



Quail are very prolific. Millions would 

 be the progeny of a single pair in a few 

 years were the birds not destroyed in big 

 numbers at some period of their exis- 

 tence. The land would not support them. 

 Losses occur throughout the year. These 

 are due to climate and to natural enem- 

 ies for the most part. If, for any rea- 

 son, the losses are small, as they are 

 in good breeding seasons, mild winters, 

 and when for any cause the natural 

 enemies have a bad year, the quail, as 

 all sportsmen know, will become very 

 plentiful on land where there are covers, 

 and foods, provided there has not been 

 much shooting. There are times, how- 

 ever, when the quail stock becomes so 

 small on account of losses that its enem- 

 ies are superabundant, or in other words 

 there are not enough quail left for the 

 foxes, hawks, snakes and many other 

 enemies. Nature's balance is said to be 

 upset in the wrong direction and the quail 

 under such conditions may become ex- 

 tinct even if there be no shooting. The 

 wild turkey occurred in Ohio in small 

 numbers when a law was enacted pro- 

 tecting them at all times; but the turkey 

 became extinct. 



Even a slight increase of the causes 

 of destruction upsets nature's balance 

 just as a slight betterment of conditions 

 upsets nature's balance, in opposite direc- 

 tions, of course. The causes of destruc- 

 tion may be said to be naturally enhanced 

 when the briars and other covers which 

 are needed for the quail protection are 

 destroyed. There may not be more hawks 

 than usual but the quails which rely 

 upon concealment and the protection of 

 briars fall an easy prey wh?n they have 

 no place to hide and no briars to pro- 

 tect them from their enemies. 



By no possibility could the prairie 

 grouse be restored on vast areas where 

 we once shot them abundantly without 

 restoring some covers and foods, because 

 as far as the eye can reach the grass and 



the stubble are plowed under and the 

 wild roses, sunflowers and other protect- 

 ing covers and the necessary foods are 

 eliminated at certain seasons of the year. 

 The numerous prairie falcons (I have 

 seen them in rows on the telegraph and 

 telephone poles), look in vain for the 

 grouse, which once formed a great part 

 of their food. It is no wonder that nat- 

 uralists find mice in the hawk stomachs, 

 which formerly contained grouse, and 

 that we are told not to shoot the benefi- 

 cial hawks. 



How absurd it seems for the people of 

 the great prairie states, who easily could 

 have all the grouse they could eat at 

 prices surprisingly small, to listen to the 

 advice of confirmed mischief makers who 

 always advise laws preventing shooting, 

 when anyone with an elementary knowl- 

 edge of natural history and the laws 

 which govern nature's balance knows full 

 well that during the closed season many 

 areas, where the grouse now occur in 

 sufficient numbers to feed their, natural 

 enemies, will be made uninhabitable for 

 the birds, as other vast areas, are, and 

 that in places where grouse are few and 

 where their enemies are numerous na- 

 ture's balance already is upset in the 

 wrong direction. We wish to warn the 

 people of the grouse states against the 

 mischief making which we have stamped 

 out in some of the eastern states with the 

 result that those who look after game 

 have an abundance. Those who do noth- 

 ing find fair shooting, due to the efforts 

 of the industrious. Remember that na- 

 ture's balance already is upset badly in 

 most of the grouse states and that laws 

 preventing the work of those who will 

 restore it should not be enacted. 



GOOD ADVICE. 



Mr. E. C. Hinshaw,the capable game 

 warden of Iowa, says: "Let me repeat 

 what I said two years ago, that more 

 pounds of fish can be raised in an acre 

 of proper water than it is possible to 

 raise pounds of beef or the best lands 

 that Iowa affords. These fish are worth 

 more per pound than beef, and this does 

 not take into consideration the recrea- 



