50 



THE GAME BREEDER 



and eggs sometimes are exchanged by 

 breeders or game preservers owning dif- 

 ferent properties. 



Robert Bill, head keeper to Sir Wil- 

 liam Gordon dimming Bart, says eggs 

 are constantly changed from one part of 

 the estate to another. 



Lord Elphinstone says, "Some eggs 

 are lifted and put in other nests." Col. 

 A. Trotter says, "eggs are often lifted 

 from insecure or forsaken nests and add- 

 ed to others." Sir George Houston Bos- 

 wall, Bart, writes that "a lot of eggs 

 are lifted from impossible places and put 

 into other nests. Eggs also are changed 

 from one side of the place to another." 

 Captain H. Heathcoat Amory writes 

 that, "eggs are lifted from the outside of 

 the estate and brought into the center to 

 fill up nests to 20 or 22 eggs, which 

 works well, and often has the advantage 

 of changing blood to a certain extent." 



There are many other English records 

 indicating that partridge breeders enter- 

 tain the opinion that in-breeding is not 

 desirable. 



We do not know if eggs produced by 

 birds of one covey are apt to be infer- 

 tile. We would be inclined to 1 guess that 

 they might be fertile but that the progeny 

 would be improved by the breaking up 

 of the covies by vermin in a state of 

 nature or by shooting in places where 

 the sportsmen decide to protect the game 

 and to shoot the birds which would have 

 been destroyed by vermin. 



We wrote a few letters to people we 

 thought might know something about 

 the subject but we doubted if they could 

 inform us as to the fertility of eggs pro- 

 duced by birds of one covey. Dr. Her- 

 bert K. Job was the only one who an- 

 swered our inquiry. He writes: 



"In the matter of which you inquire, 

 about the fertility of eggs produced by 

 quail that were brother and sister, I have 

 no direct data. I happen, however, to 

 know this, that in my joint experiment 

 with breeding canvasbacks on the Wil- 

 liam Rockefeller estate, under my friend 

 Arthur M. Barnes, the mother canvas- 

 back mated with one of her sons, pro- 

 duced fertile eggs, and raised young in 

 1916. Next year, 1917, they bred again, 



apparently the same birds, but that time 

 the young seemed to lack vitality and 

 died quite early. This may have been 

 due to in-breeding, but one instance 

 would hardly settle the point. It is evi- 

 dent that young can be raised from mem- 

 bers of the same family, but it is clearly 

 best not to press this too far, but to in- 

 troduce new blood." 



In California we have been told that 

 covies which were not broken up some- 

 times did not separate ' in the spring 

 and the birds apparently did not breed. 



The truth of the matter is, however, 

 that game breeding is in its infancy in 

 America and we all know comparatively 

 little about it and have a great deal to 

 learn. The problems of game breeding 

 are properly discussed in The Game 

 Breeder, the only magazine devoted ex- 

 clusively to the interests of game breed- 

 ers, and we shall be glad to have our 

 readers discuss this problem or any 

 other in which they are interested. 



The Game and The Farmer. 



A western farmer writes to The Game 

 Breeder : "I don't want to see good 

 food producers made criminals through 

 special privilege laws." 



The idea that state game departments 

 should arrest farmers for having stock 

 birds in their possession for breeding 

 purposes is vanishing rapidly and when 

 the farmers generally realize that they 

 should have the right to produce any 

 kind of plant or animal on their farms 

 without being arrested we believe the 

 legislator who opposes them quickly will 

 retire to private life. 



Our correspondent says there is a 

 move on in the western agricultural 

 states and men will be sent to make 

 laws for the people who now have very 

 little representation in the government 

 of the states. 



Laws which prevent the profitable 

 breeding of game undoubtedly tend to 

 decrease the value of the farms since a 

 farm where a high-priced food can be 

 produced is worth more than one where 

 such industry is criminal. 



Since it is legal to post the farms 

 against shooting, and most of the farms 



