THE GAME BREEDER 



137 



AN EXPERIMENT WITH GAMBEL'S QUAIL. 



By D. W. Huntington. 



An interesting experiment is being 

 made this year at the Long Island Game 

 Breeders' Association farms with Gam- 

 bel's quail or partridges. We have long 

 believed that attempts to introduce any 

 species in a new region where it never 

 occurred would not succeed when only 

 a few pair of birds were used in the ex- 

 periment. Darwin says if only a few 

 stalks of wheat be grown in a garden 

 the birds will get all the seed. There 

 will be none for reproduction. We have 

 observed the attempts made by State of- 

 ficers to introduce and liberate pheasants 

 in Kansas and gray partridges in Con- 

 necticut and also the similar experiments 

 made in other States which were total or 

 nearly total failures. Although many 

 thousands of dollars were expended in 

 the two States named and thousands of 

 birds were liberated, the results were bad 

 failures. One Connecticut warden who 

 was distributing birds reported that upon 

 looking back, after he had liberated a 

 pair of gray partridges in a field, he saw 

 a hawk take one of them. There were 

 many similar disasters, no doubt, to the 

 new birds in a strange country full of 

 vermin. They came from places where 

 the keepers make the fields safe and they 

 were not prepared to be on the lookout 

 for numerous species of vermin besides 

 the hawks. 



Our theory is that good numbers o>f 

 birds should be liberated on compara- 

 tively small areas ; that such areas should 

 have an abundance of food and that 

 water should be provided in places with- 

 out ponds or 'streams. There should be 

 also an abundance of good cover, many 

 briars- at the borders of and in the fields 

 where the foods are planted. Before we 

 have completed the experiments with the 

 Gambel's quail, prairie grouse and other 

 American game birds, we hope to have 

 the fields prepared with numerous suit- 

 able briar patches, such as each species 

 prefers and to have the briar patches 



connected with briar avenues so the birds 

 can always find safe places when going 

 to feed. 



Thus far our experiment with Gam- 

 bel's quail indicates that they lay more 

 eggs when confined in pens than they 

 lay in a wild State, the eggs, of course, 

 being gathered from the penned birds. 

 A number of birds confined together in 

 one pen did not average as many eggs as 

 were laid by one hen confined with one 

 cock in a similar pen. The last named 

 bird had laid 21 eggs and apparently was 

 not through laying when I saw her a few 

 days ago. Although as many eggs as 

 are usually laid by this quail were left in 

 the nest for several days to see if she 

 would become broody, she kept on laying 

 an egg every day. This pair of birds 

 was selected at random from the lot in 

 the other pen and the hirds were mated 

 arbitrarily, of course. 



The food given consisted of small 

 grain and seeds and a lot of grass and 

 clover plucked and thrown in the pen 

 daily. Fresh water was always given 

 daily. Since complaints have been made 

 in New Mexico that the Gambel's quail 

 eat the beans we shall plant beans for 

 the birds next year. 



Eggs placed under heavy hens were 

 broken to a large extent and the bantams 

 on the place refused to get broody at the 

 right time. ' Some eggs will be hatched, 

 no doubt, under the hens and we hope to 

 hatch many more in an incubator. Some 

 of the newly hatched birds will be of- 

 fered to old quail to see if they will 

 adopt them. Both Gambels and the Bob 

 Whites will have families of young pre- 

 sented to thelm if they will take them 

 and look after them. I have hopes. of 

 inducing a cock Bob White to adopt and 

 rear a flock of Gambel's quail in a wild 

 State, and if he does I can see no reason 

 why he should not impart to his brood 

 good sporting manners. 



The Gambel's quail is a noted sprinter, 



