THE GAME BREEDER 



81 



Hen Shortage. 



From all over the country reports 

 come indicating a difficulty of procuring 

 hens for breeding purposes and there are 

 complaints about high prices. The new 

 Game Breeding Association, on Long 

 Island, N. Y., like the other syndicate 

 shoots, clubs and preserves, has experi- 

 enced this difficulty. Duncan Dunn, su- , 

 perintendent of the New Jersey State 

 Game Farm, said it is a hard job to get 

 hens this year. It keeps us on the road 

 all the time after setting hens — 40 cents 

 a pound for an old hen, some price, eh? 

 And they are hard to get at that. The 

 price of young pheasants and pheasants 

 for fall delivery will be affected, no 

 doubt, by the scarcity of hens. 



Use of Incubators. 



The incubator will be used more than 

 ever this year and we hope many of our 

 readers will keep records of their work 

 with the incubator and send them to 

 The Game Breeder. Remember always 

 that you are interested in reading about 

 what other members of the society are 

 doing and that they will be much inter- 

 ested in reading your experiences. 



The Long Island Game Breeders As- 

 sociation and the experiment station of 

 the Game Conservation Society will have 

 many wild duck eggs hatched in incu- 

 bators this season, including eggs of some 

 of the more valuable species. The results 

 of these experiments will be oublished 

 in The Game Breeder and the reports 

 undoubtedly will be favorable since 

 many breeders now entertain the opinion 

 that good strong wild ducks can be pro- 

 duced by incubators. 



Licenses for Aviary Species. 



It seems to be generally conceded that 

 no State licenses are required to breed 

 the aviary species of pheasants. Intelli- 

 gent State officers see that there is no 

 necessity or reason for asking the 

 breeder of aviary, or non-sporting pheas- 

 ants to pay for a permit to have them in 

 his possession or to sell them. The birds 

 always have been sold to zoos and pri- 

 vate owners of aviaries without buyer 



or seller paying any license fee. This 

 is highly proper since there is no more 

 sense in a State game department col- 

 lecting license fees from the owners of 

 non-game birds than there would be in 

 the collection of fines from those who 

 have canaries, poll-parrots or other sing- 

 ers or squawkers. We are told that this 

 matter has been passed on properly by 

 at least one State commission. It seems 

 peculiar that any commission should be 

 called on to pass on such a question. The 

 State department which would attempt 

 to collect from the owners of aviary or 

 non-game pheasants should with equal 

 propriety call upon the owners of barn- 

 yard hens for a tip. 



Abundance of Eggs. 



Many reports come from the game 

 farms and preserves that the hens are 

 laying finely. There will be a tremen- 

 dous yield of pheasant and wild duck 

 eggs this season. Certainly hundreds of 

 thousands and probably millions of these 

 eggs will be sold. 



Grouse and quail eggs are not so plen- 

 tiful in the market as we would like to 

 see them but this is due to the exter- 

 minating effect of game laws in many 

 States which often do not permit the 

 owners of grouse or quail to sell their 

 eggs. This is so silly that many owners 

 are beginning to argue that it cannot be 

 the law ; that the legislators cannot be 

 presumed to be fools and that when laws 

 are enacted protecting the rare and van- 

 ishing State quail and their eggs they 

 were not intended to apply to birds and 

 eggs owned bv individuals. We have 

 long believed the courts would so decide 

 if any of the food producers be arrested 

 and of course intelligent State officers 

 do not wish to see any more arrests of 

 people for selling egfgs or food which 

 they own. The warden of the old stvle 

 who delighted in making trouble has for 

 the most part passed into "innocuous 

 desuetude." 



GambeH's Quail. 



The Game Conservation Society will 

 make an imoortant experiment with 

 Gambell's quail this season. The birds 



