T he Game Breeder 



Published Monthly. Entered as second-class matter. July q, igis, at the Post Office, New York City, 



New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 



VOLUME VIII 



DECEMBER, W5 

 SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 



NUMBER 3 



The Rebus. 



J. T. McClellan, of Glendale, Cali- 

 fornia, writes: "I find on page 189 

 of The Game Breeder a Rebus. Here 

 it is: 



M. G. AND F. G. L. 



"Is it Migratory Game and Federal 

 Game Laws? Am I right? What's 

 in it?" 



Most of our readers would guess the 

 Rebus thus : 



m. g. and f. g. l. 



"more game and fewer game laws." 

 This is the correct solution. 



[It is fair to say that Mr. McClellan only 

 began reading The Game Breeder recently. — 

 Editor.] 



State Wild Ducks. 



Some people and even some State 

 game officers seem to think the State 

 should not breed wild ducks because the 

 birds are migratory and likely to fly out 

 of the State. It was believed in England 

 for a long time and until quite recently 

 that wild ducks could not be bred suc- 

 cessfully on preserves and game farms 

 and that those who undertook such in- 

 dustry would only provide sport for 

 others, because the ducks would fly away. 

 Game keepers who made the first experi- 

 ments soon proved that wild ducks can 

 be reared and that many of them can be 

 shot before they migrate even from com- 

 partively small places. Nearly every 

 country place in England is now said to 

 have wild ducks. Some are lost when 

 the shooting takes place but many re- 

 main and attract other ducks which can 

 be shot to offset the loss. 



In a letter from the Chairman of the 

 State Game Commission of Massachu- 

 setts, we are told that some people even 



urged that hand reared ducks could not 

 fly. "We have banded," Dr. Field says, 

 "only a few of the birds which we liber- 

 ated, and of three which were banded, 

 No. 101 was shot in Wayland, about 

 eighty miles from the point of liberation, 

 and No. 118 was shot on Long Island, 

 N. Y., according to a letter received 

 from Chief Protector Legge, of the New 

 York State Department; the third mal- 

 lard, No. 103, which left east Sandwich 

 about the same time, has not yet been 

 heard from." 



This duck may winter in the South 

 and return to East Sandwich. Some of 

 our readers have reported that their 

 ducks which went South during or after 

 the shooting returned to breed on their 

 old breeding grounds. 



The Best Way. 



The best way for a State Department 

 to handle wild ducks or in fact any live 

 game is to distribute it to game breeders 

 who will agree to multiply the game and 

 tq shoot it and to sell it so that the dear 

 people, who are said to own the game, 

 can have a substantial taste of their prop- 

 erty. The U. S. Agricultural Depart- 

 ment distributes seeds to those who will 

 plant them and a State Department might 

 well distribute ducks to those who will 

 see that they breed abundantly, and eggs 

 to those who will have them hatched. 



We heard some time ago that another 

 State Department was so much afraid 

 that its ducks would migrate that it sold 

 them all to a club in another State, possi- 

 bly with the idea that when they migrated 

 they would come back so that the peo- 

 ple could shoot them and thus perform 

 a remarkable stunt somewhat on the or- 

 der of those who would "eat their cake 

 and have their' cake." 



