452 



RECREA TIOX. 



shooting at clay pigeons or a target unless 

 they are millionaires and can own a game 

 preserve. I have had my share of good 

 shooting and enough. I shall seldom use 

 a gun again. I can get as much pleasure 

 in looking at game as in shooting it. One 

 thing is sure; nothing can be done around 

 here as to working up the League of 

 American Sportsmen. If there was any 

 hope of doing anything I would help you 

 all I could, but the boys will not support 

 the effort. The song birds and others are, 

 I believe, generally well protected here, 

 though the English sparrows have nearly 

 driven them out of the country, and that is 

 an evil for which there is no known rem- 

 edy. The public schools are doing good 

 work for protection of the birds by teach- 

 ing children to protect and not molest 

 them. 



M. W. Miner, York, Neb. 



ANSWER. 



This is indeed a deplorable state of af- 

 fairs, but fortunately it does not prevail 

 everywhere, not even all over Nebraska. 

 The League ha^, a few members in that 

 State, and the number is growing slowly. 

 Those who have joined are, of course, 

 the more progressive men, and Mr. Miner 

 is one of them. The time will come when 

 many of the residents of that State will 

 awaken to the interest of game protection. 

 They will then join the League and help 

 us. It may be too late, of course, to 

 save the prairie chickens from extermina- 

 tion, but it may still be possible to save a 

 few coveys of quails for seed, and to aid 

 in the preservation of migratory water 

 Jowls. It is a pity that so called sports- 

 men should ever lapse into such a deplora- 

 ble state of innocuous desuetude as Mr. 

 Miner portrays. Possibly the good Lord 

 may send a cyclone of reform through that 

 State some day that will wake up some of 

 those pothunters. — Editor. 



IMPORTING QUAILS. 



I was speaking to a club man a few days 

 ago of his game preserve 5 miles out from 

 Pittsburg, Pa. He says that 20 sportsmen 

 from Pittsburg have bought the gunning 

 privilege of 4,000 acres of farm land near 

 Pittsburg and are trying to stock the place 

 with quails from the South and West, but 

 so far they have met with poor success, 

 although they have put out over 1,000 pairs 

 each year for several years. Last year 

 they imported 2,400 quails from Kansas. 

 They pay $3.50 to $6 a dozen for the live 

 birds. It seems a shame that these birds 

 are taken from a climate in which they can 

 live and thrive and are transported to a 

 cold, severe climate, where the winters are 

 almost certain death to them. - 



My friend also says many thousands ot 

 trapped birds are shipped North and East 

 each year, and that the reason the charges 

 for them are so high is that the shippers 

 run a risk of being caught, as they are 

 violating the laws of Kansas. Can't some- 

 thing be done to check this wholesale 

 slaughter of quails in the South and West? 

 W. L. Harris, Virginia Beach, Va. 



ANSWER. 



I fail to see anything like slaughter in 

 the shipment of quails from one State to 

 another for propagating purposes. Of 

 course, the birds are distributed for the 

 purpose of being killed eventually, but in 

 some of the localities where they are lib- 

 erated there are laws in existence pro- 

 tecting them for a series of years; while in 

 Kansas there is no such law. It is a well 

 known fact that farmers and farmers' boys 

 in that State, as well as in others where 

 quails are plentiful, trap them persistently 

 and constantly. When they get them, they 

 sell them for any price they can get. If no 

 one else bought and shipped them, the 

 local grocers would buy them, and either 

 kill and ship them to game dealers, or they 

 would be sold and eaten in the town where 

 such grocers live. The L. A. S. is doing 

 everything possible to stop the killing and 

 shipping of ^ame in close season, but, per- 

 sonally, I approve of the plan of restocking 

 areas of country where the game has been 

 killed off. I wish all the thousands of quails 

 that are annually killed in Kansas, Texas. 

 Oklahoma and the Indian Territory and 

 shipped to game dealers in Chicago and 

 other cities could, instead, be shipped alive 

 to other States and liberated. A live bird 

 in the field is worth 100 dead birds in a 

 game dealer's refrigerator. 



As far as I know, most of the birds 

 shipped from Kansas, in the spring or sum- 

 mer, and set at liberty in Pennsylvania, 

 New England and other Northern States, 

 thrive and multiply. Of course there is a 

 marked difference in the climate, but they 

 seem to adjust themselves to this as the 

 winter comes on, and I have never heard 

 of any serious loss from freezing of these 

 imported quails. — Editor, 



IN THE TEN SLEEP COUNTRY. 



Manchester, N. H. 

 Editor Recreation : 



Arriving at Ten Sleep in June, 1896. af- 

 ter 165 miles in a prairie schooner, sleep- 

 ing on the ground during the trip, a soft 

 bed was welcome. The bed was found at 

 Milo Burke's. Such a greeting as we re- 

 ceived from Burke really made us think 

 we had met an old schoolmate. 



In a short time our trip to the moun- 

 tains was arranged, and preparations made 



