THE GAME BREEDER 



17 



a few rails laid to make a panel or two 

 of an old-fashioned rail fence will make 

 very attractive nesting sites ; and weeds 

 and briars should be left as cover and 

 food. A little clover, lettuce, buckwheat 

 and sunflowers will make the nesting site 

 very attractive and weeds, grass and 

 briars will save the birds from many nat- 

 ural enemies. 



The state game officers, we are quite 

 sure, will prefer to see the sportsmen 

 and farmers work together and produce 

 "more game" to seeing the game protec- 

 tionists (who gather vast funds in order 

 to save the game) succeed in putting our 

 best game birds on the song-bird list. 

 In some states the laws now permit the 

 profitable production of quail and grouse 

 and even in states where these birds have 

 been placed on the song-bird list the laws 

 quickly can be amended so as to favor 

 the producers provided they will show 

 that they have game. 



No good reason can be assigned why 

 the laws should say you can produce 

 pheasants and some species of ducks but 

 you must not produce birds which most 

 need the breeders' attention and which 

 will be far more profitable than pheas- 

 ants and ducks. 



We expect soon to have many adver- 

 tisements of grouse and quail and the 

 eggs of these birds. 



Big Demand for Pure Bred Wild 

 Ducks. 



Mr. Dusette of Bad Ax, Michigan, 

 writes to change his advertisement, strik- 

 ing out the offer of mallards and black 

 ducks. He says he has noticed there is 

 a very big demand for pure-bred wild 

 ducks and their eggs and that those who 

 at one time were satisfied with near mal- 

 lards now want only pure-bred stock. 



Mr. R. A. Chiles of Mt. Sterling, Ken- 

 tucky, also reports an increasing demand 

 for pure-bred wild ducks and says they 

 command much better prices than the 

 semi-domestic birds and their eggs do. 



Black Ducks. 



Mr. Bullock of the Scarboro Beach 

 game farm, the largest game farm in New 

 England, writes that he secured permits 

 to trap a lot of black ducks which were 



suffering from climate. The birds quick- 

 ly recovered and with these added to 

 his flock he believes he now has the larg- 

 est flock of pure-bred wild black ducks 

 on any game farm. His advertisement 

 of eggs appears on another page. We 

 oredict that all of the game farmers who 

 have black ducks will quickly sell all of 

 the eggs they are willing to part with. 

 The same is true of the dealers in pure- 

 .bred wild mallards. 



Bad Luck With Heath Hens. 



Mr. Llewellyn Legge, chief of the Divi- 

 sion of Fish and Game, stated that all of 

 the heath hens placed on the New York 

 State Game Farm at Shoreham, Long 

 Island, in a three-acre enclosure of scrub- 

 oak, had died, apparently having "gone 

 light." The birds were sent by the Massa- 

 chusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and 

 Game from the heath hen reservation at 

 Martha's Vineyard, where the species it 

 may be is making its last stand. A simi- 

 lar consignment was sent to Dr. J. C. 

 Phillips at Wenham, Mass., in the hope 

 that a new breeding colony might be 

 started. Some of the birds sent Dr. Phil- 

 lips died, although the experiment at his 

 place was not as unfortunate as that at 

 Shoreham. 



As. Dr. Phillips has entered the service 

 of the United States, he has sent his birds 

 to Mr. Joshua Crane, who has placed 

 them on his game preserve on No-Man's 

 Land. 



As stated in a recent issue of the 5m/- 

 letin, the heath hen, which had increased 

 to such an extent as to seem to justify 

 hopes that the species would be saved, 

 is again gravely threatened, owing to a 

 disastrous fire which swept its haunts on 

 Martha's Vineyard. — Sportsman's Re- 

 view. 



Quail Breeding. 



We hope many of our members will 

 breed quail this year for sport and for 

 profit. Quail will lay many eggs if they 

 are paired arbitrarily and quail eggs 

 have been successfully hatched under 

 bantam and light weight hens. If the 

 hen be permitted to run with the young 

 birds in gardens, hedged with briars, and 

 containing brush heaps and other covers, 



