86 



THE GAME BREEDER 



the Red Cross Chapter it is expected to 

 send him on to San Antonio for the same 

 purpose and thence to other points along 

 his route to Washington. It is hoped 

 that this Wimble County turkey will as- 

 sist in raising a large sum for the Red 

 Cross at each station. . 



[ — How about the game laws. We know a 

 Southern lady who was arrested and fined for 

 having a wild turkey egg in her possession or 

 hatching the bird, we forget just now what 

 the crime was. Would it not be wise for the 

 recipient Woodrow to look out?] 



Incubators 

 Those who insist that it should be a 

 crime to produce food on a farm and that 

 no one should shoot more than he can 

 personally eat and that the people under 

 no circumstances ever should have a taste 

 of the game they are said to own, seem 

 to be actuated by selfish motives. When 

 it appears that they gather enough money 

 every year to provide game for thousands 

 of people, if it could be properly ex- 

 pended, we fail to see how they should 

 be permitted to say that not even the 

 owners of food birds can let the people 

 have any of such property to eat provided 

 sport paid all or a good part of the cost 

 of production. The Congress knew what 

 it was doing when it protected the food 

 producers. 



The only excuse that sport has for its 

 existence is that the animals and birds 

 taken are excellent human food. Had it 

 not been for the fact that sport furnished 

 a big lot of cheap food it would have been 

 ended long ago in countries where it 

 flourishes for all hands — the owners of 

 country places, farmers and wild fowlers 

 or market gunners who all shoot and sell 

 game for the people to eat in every civil- 

 ized country excepting some parts of the 

 United States and Canada. 



The Wood-tick. 



Next we come to insect pests. Expe- 

 rienced ornithologists and entomologists 

 are agreed that, as bird life decreases, in- 

 sect life increases; and it has long been 

 an established fact that the bird life of 

 this continent has steadily decreased. 

 Here we find again nature's true balance 



upset by man's intrusion. Senator Mc- 

 Lean, of the United States Senate, one 

 of the fathers of the splendid interna- 

 tional law protecting migratory birds and 

 prohibiting winter and spring shooting of 

 wild fowl in the United States, recently 

 stated that : "If the destruction caused 

 by insects shows increase during the next 

 twenty years as rapidly as it has in- 

 creased since 1893, we might well reach 

 a condition so desperate that the protec- 

 tion of the nation against insects will be 

 as necessary and justifiable as is now the 

 protection of the people against conta- 

 gious diseases an dhostile fleets." Of the 

 various insects which attack animal and 

 bird life, the wood-tick is the most con- 

 spicuous in Manitoba. It is found most 

 plentifully in scrub-oak, though it fre- 

 quents all our wooded areas. Some sea- 

 sons it appears in larger numbers than 

 in others, but the past season (1916) was 

 noteworthy in that a veritable plague of 

 these insects infested the country. Per- 

 haps this was because there were not 

 sufficient insect-eating birds to keep them 

 down to normal numbers. Early in May 

 I killed several rabbits near Winnipeg, 

 and these animals were literally alive 

 with ticks, their eyes, ears and even their 

 lips being clotted with them, and their 

 entire bodies were covered by the loath- 

 some, blood-sucking pests. After an 

 hour's stroll through the oak and pop- 

 lar scrub I picked 22 from my own 

 body, and am convinced that no living 

 thing passing through or near the woods 

 at that season could possibly escape them. 

 The rabbits referred to were thin and 

 emaciated and it was quite apparent that 

 they were slowly being sapped to death. 

 We may well ask, how did the young 

 grouse, which appeared shortly after- 

 wards, fare? I believe the answer was 

 given later in the year, when extremely 

 few young birds were seen with the old 

 ones. That the wood-ticks decimated 

 the prairie chicken broods unmercifully 

 I feel perfectly convinced, for I do not 

 believe a young 'grouse has the strength 

 to battle such a plague of vermin as ex- 

 isted in the woods in the spring of 1916. 



