302 



RECREATION. 



Rifle and Gun Club became interested and 

 voted to try raising the Chinese pheas- 

 ant. I was employed by the club to take 

 hold of the work. After I got through for 

 them I tried raising some for myself. 

 Last year I set 1,167 eggs and I raised 

 some 225 birds. This seems a small num- 

 ber compared to the number of eggs set, 

 but the birds are hard to raise and there 

 are so many things to contend with that 

 I consider it a good average. Mr. E. A. 

 Brackett, chairman of the State Fish and 

 Game Commission, says few who have 

 had eggs from the commission have suc- 

 ceeded in raising birds, and that it 

 would have been better to liberate the 

 birds in the vicinity than to have indi- 

 viduals try to raise them. He says I have 

 been the most successful of anyone. 

 Mr. Brackett says there are few pure 

 Chinese pheasant breeders in the East. 

 Many claim they have the Chinese birds, 

 but they have only the English ringnecks. 

 Some of these dealers are honest, thinking 

 they have the pure Mongolians, and 

 others are not. 



H. R. Foster, Ashby, Mass. 



NOTES ON THE MOURNING DOVE. 



Noticing a request for information on 

 the mourning dove, Zenaida macroura, I 

 venture to give my observations. This 

 dove is migratory, usually coming into 

 Ohio about the last of March, although 

 a few pass the winter here. The fall 

 migration begins about the first of Oc- 

 tober. 



Two eggs are the complement, the nest 

 being placed, generally, on a low horizon- 

 tal branch, although I have found nests 

 on the ground. Sometimes 2 broods are 

 raised and I have found well developed 

 eggs in birds killed in September. 



The food of mourning doves consists 

 of grain and seeds, and the flesh is ex- 

 cellent, especially that of the young birds. 



Mourning doves inhabit the fields and 

 woods in search of food until about an 

 hour before sunset, when they travel to 

 the nearest water, preferably a creek or 

 lake with gravelly banks, where they 

 quench their thirst and pick up gravel for 

 their crops. After remaining 10 or 15 

 minutes at the drinking place, they go to 

 the roost, usually a thick swamp or a 

 bushy thicket, for the night. I once found 

 in Huron county a roost in an apple or- 

 chard and at least i.ooo doves came into 

 it about dark. Doves, should never be 

 shot. They should be protected by law 

 at all times. 



W. B. Haynes, Akron, O. 



BEES DO NOT HARM PEACHES. 

 The value of expert testimony, and the 

 high grade of scientific knowledge at the 



command of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture in Washington, were well illustrated 

 recently at Goshen, N. Y. The owner of 

 a peach orchard sued a keeper of bees, 

 the peach grower contending that he suf- 

 fered a loss of $25 by the injury done to 

 his fruit by the bees. The case of the 

 peach grower was ruined by the testimony 

 of Professor Frank Benton, who, after 30 

 years' special study of bees, both at home 

 and abroad, is now connected with the 

 Department of Agriculture. That gentle- 

 man sustained the evidence of other wit- 

 nesses that bees could do no harm to 

 sound peaches. 



The tongue of the bee, he said, is soft 

 and pliable and could not puncture a 

 peach. The inner tongue, which is spoon 

 shaped and covered with hair, can not be- 

 come rigid. Bees lap their food and are 

 fond of rotten peaches. Their feelers, be- 

 ing soft, can not pierce any substance 

 that offers the least resistance. They are 

 supposedly the organ of touch and that 

 of smell by which the bees recognize one 

 another by the odor of the body. Some- 

 times bees will meet and wind their feel- 

 ers about each other. This is their meth- 

 od of shaking hands. — Exchange. 



PROBABLY A GROSBEAK. 



I am trying to make friends with the 

 birds about our house. We have the 

 bluebird, snowbird, sparrow, chickadee, 

 and a few snipe in a bog below the house. 

 Boys usually come around here with air 

 guns and scare the birds away, but I get 

 after the marauders and drive them away. 



Deer are plentiful here. We have had 

 one spike horn buck and a doe. Quails 

 are numerous, but have been protected 

 5 years and the season opens next Aug- 

 ust, I expect they will be slaughtered. 

 The new game law taxes $1 to shoot. We 

 have all kinds of ducks and geese, but 

 the way they are slaughtered is a shame, 

 50 a day for some bogs being a small bag. 



Can you tell me the name of a bird 

 which frequents a little wood below our 

 house? Following is the description: 

 Black head, white beak, black wings, with 

 one white broad feather on each wing; 

 reddish brown breast; chirps like a small 

 chicken. 



C. R. Roy, Seattle, Wash. 



The bird you refer to is probably the 

 black headed grosbeak, Zamelodia melano- 

 cephala. — Editor. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



In May Recreation I sa'w an article 

 about gray and black squirrels denning 

 together. I have never seen them nest in 

 the same tree, but have known the 2 va- 

 rieties to live in the same park, but in 



