THE GAME BREEDER 



15 



poultry and share in their feed, and 1 

 hope they will nest at least in as domes- 

 tic a manner as the average guinea hen. 



Trying the above experiment sug- 

 gested itself to me because of several 

 pheasant eggs hatching later than the 

 others and resulted in turning these 

 young birds in with incubated chickens. 

 The young pheasants did very well, not- 

 withstanding they received the same feed 

 as the young chickens and never had one 

 bit of egg and other apparently neces- 

 sary pheasant morsels. It is to be ad- 

 mitted, of course, that they had plenty 

 of range and no doubt had sufficient in- 

 sect life as a substitute." 



The grasshoppers no doubt were the 

 cause of the successful rearing. 



Our readers are aware that in many 

 cases young pheasants, permitted to run 

 at large with the hen, have been reared 

 successfully. Where the young procure 

 plenty of grasshoppers and have a safe 

 range this method always has- found to 

 work out very well. The hen and chicks 

 are shut up for the night until the birds 

 are big enough to go to roost. 



Owen Jones, a talented English game- 

 keeper and author, says: "When five or 



six weeks old, chicks, hens and coops 

 are carted away in wagons to the woods, 

 where the chicks must face the dangers 

 of vermin by night as well as by day 

 until they learn to go to roost." 



In America, of course, where the 

 fields and woods are full of vermin, it 

 is a difficult matter to introduce pheas- 

 ants to the covers as they safely can do 

 in countries where the vermin is con- 

 trolled by many keepers not only on the 

 place where the pheasants are put out in 

 the woods, as Mr. Jones describes, but 

 also on the adjoining places. Vermin is 

 known to gather in places where game is 

 reared. After a light snow the fox 

 tracks were as numerous as sheep tracks 

 would have been had we been keeping 

 big flocks of sheep in the fields near the 

 pheasant pens at the Game Breeders' As- 

 sociation preserve. Hawks, crows and 

 black snakes also appeared in good num- 

 bers and many were killed and trapped. 

 But I am sure had we attempted to es- 

 tablish the pheasants in rides in the 

 woods the losses would have been large. 

 Many of our. quail left the ground near 

 the pheasant pens and I believe they 

 could not stand the vermin. 



NOTES FROM THE GAME FARMS AND PRESERVES. 



Quail Breeding. 



We would strongly urge our readers 

 to undertake quail breeding. Our adver- 

 tisers soon can supply several species of 

 quail and The Game Breeder will pub- 

 lish many articles about the successful 

 breeding of quail. Soon the laws will 

 be amended so as to permit and encour- 

 age the breeding of quail for sport and 

 for profit and those who get their orders 

 in first will be served first. The experi- 

 ments made this year prove that cock 

 quail will adopt broods of one day old 

 birds when they are properly offered to 

 them. A penned quail will lay enough 

 eggs to provide two good bevies and if 

 gardens are made suitable for their rear- 

 ing many young easily can be reared and 

 permitted to fly out into the adjoining 

 fields. These should be planted so as to 



make them safe and attractive. The in- 

 dustry of quail breeding is most inter- 

 esting and it can be made most profitable 

 for both game farmers and sportsmen 

 as soon as the laws everywhere permit 

 quail breeding as they now do in several 

 States. 



Next year the Game Conservation So- 

 ciety will breed ruffed grouse and prairie 

 grouse both in a wild state, in captivity, 

 and by a new method which has not been 

 tried, but which we are sure will produce 

 excellent results. Stories of the experi- 

 mental work will appear in The Game 

 Breeder. All crops will be gathered by 

 shooting. 



Running QuaiL 



The plumed and crested quail or part- 

 ridges of the Southwestern States and 

 California it is well known do not lie 



