THE GAME BREEDER 



179 



number of eggs as the greenhead, any- 

 where from 25 to 35 during the season, 

 but they begin laying much earlier. I 

 have quite a lot of them now setting and 

 all of my two-year-old black ducks are 

 laying. 



I have been breeding blue-winged teal 

 in captivity for a number of years, suc- 

 cessfully, and also have been successful 

 with wild mallards. 



There is a great question in my mind 

 whether any game breeders have wild 

 mallards. The ducks I have seen on the 



various private game farms are all mixed 

 up crossed with Rouens English call 

 ducks and wild mallards. These ducks 

 will breed regularly year after year, and 

 what usually are sold as mallards by the 

 game breeders, but they are entirely dif- 

 ferent in general appearance from the 

 true wild mallards. 



What is true of the black ducks is also 

 true of the wild mallards: they generally 

 do not breed until they are two years 

 old. 



THE PRAIRIE GROUSE. 



Plan for a Grouse Preserve. 



Ninth Paper. 



By D. W. Huntington. 





Although a few prairie grouse have 

 been bred in captivity and some natural- 

 ists believe these birds can be domesti- 

 cated, I would strongly advise those who 

 wish to breed them to do so in a wild 

 state on protected areas. This method 

 has been proved to be tremendously suc- 

 cessful on the grouse moors of Scotland 

 and on many preserves in England an r ' 

 Ireland where the red grouse are abund- 

 ant. 



The natural law, often referred to i 

 The Game Breeder, that if the checks to 

 the increase of any species be controlled, 

 quickly the species will increase in -num- 

 bers, applies to the grouse as well as to 

 quail and other game birds. The con- 

 trol of the natural enemies of the grouse 

 cannot be expected, however, to produce 

 good results on areas where the natural 

 foods and covers have been destroyed ab- 

 solutely, and where the birds surely will 

 suffer more from climatic losses than 

 they ever did from vermin. 



The natural foods of the grouse have 

 been enumerated in this series of papers. 

 Many of them will grow abundantly 

 almost anywhere if they be introduced 

 and permitted to grow wild. The prin- 

 cipal natural covers are grasses, wild 

 roses, sunflowers and some of the other 

 food plants. Where the grass is de- 



stroyed on large areas and wheat and 

 other grains are closely cultivated, as 

 they are in the Dakotas, Montana and 

 elsewhere, it would be difficult if not im- 

 possible to introduce and propagate 

 grouse until some covers and natural 

 foods are provided. The nest is usually 

 placed in the midst of thick prairie grass 

 or in the corner of some field among 

 weeds, on the border of swamps and 

 sloughs, in cultivated grounds, or far out 

 on the prairie, sometimes in quite ex- 

 posed situations. A slight depression in 

 the soil is lined with grass and some 

 feathers from the hen's own body.* 

 * The Game Birds of North America. Elliot, 

 The hen lays from ten to fourteen 

 eggs. Elliot says, sometimes twenty or 

 more have been found in one nest. There 

 can be no doubt that these birds literally 

 swarmed on vast areas at a time when 

 their natural enemies (the prairie falcon 

 and other hawks, the coyote and other 

 ground enemies) also were plentiful. 

 Audubon says the grouse were regarded 

 as a pest in Kentucky. I have seen hun- 

 dreds in the air at once on the western 

 prairies. The natural increase must have 

 been large and rapid to enable the birds 

 to stand the annual losses due to vermin. 

 Evidently enough stock birds survived 

 each season to keep the grouse plentiful. 



