382 



RECREATION. 



on the nest. The old birds have great 

 nerve and will fight a hawk or anything 

 that comes near them. In Ohio, where 

 some Chinese pheasants were liberated, 

 residents report, "Birds came through the 

 winter all right, though they had no food 

 or shelter given them. They will stand 

 any degree of cold. There is no doubt of 

 their increasing rapidly in their wild state." 

 A man who liberated some in Connecticut 

 says, "They stood the winter well without 

 food or shelter being given them. In fact, 

 I do not think they feel the cold so much 

 as our native game birds do." 



In 1896 the State game protector of Ore- 

 gon said, "These pheasants have increased 

 and done well and have become the favor- 

 ite market bird in Portland, over 10,000 

 having been sold during one month, Octo- 

 ber 15 to November 15, the open season." 

 One who has hunted pheasants in Oregon 

 says, "The meat is white, of a game flavor, 

 and I consider them the choicest eating of 

 any game bird." 



The Massachusetts game commission 

 first put out in 1895 a few Chinese pheas- 

 ants. Individuals and gun clubs later put 

 out others and from localities where lib- 

 erated these birds have done well. The 

 Fitchburg gun club liberated 500 in the 

 Northern part of the State and last year 

 broods were seen while there were yet 

 patches of snow on the ground. No birds 

 could be better adapted for our coverts than 

 are Chinese pheasants. Where tried they 

 are regarded as the future game bird of 

 this country, as they can stand not only the 

 severe heat of summer, but the cold and 

 blizzard of the winter. 



Ashby, Mass. 



EARLY SPRING ON THE SUSQUEHANNA. 



J. A. LORING. 



About the middle of April, 1902, in com- 

 pany with a friend, I shipped my canoe to 

 Binghamton, N. Y., and came down the 

 beautiful Susquehanna river to Owego, a 

 distance of about 25 miles. The river was 

 high, and the muskrats, whose winter 

 houses of reeds, leaves, sticks and clods of 

 flirt had been washed away, were also 

 flooded out of their burrows in the banks 

 of the stream, and had taken shelter in the 

 Moating refuse and clumps of willows along 

 the water's edge. As the canoe darted 

 past they plunged into the water and dived, 

 then came to the surface farther down 

 stream, swam back to the thicket and hid, 

 with only the tips of their noses exposed. 



On a small rise of ground, almost sub- 

 merged, was a woodchuck that had been 

 driven from his burrow by the rising wa- 

 ter several weeks in advance of nature's 

 schedule. He appeared truly miserable, 

 cuddled at the entrance of his hole, but 



seemed none the worse after his long win- 

 ter's fast, and had fat enough to last him 

 several more months should occasion de- 

 mand. We condoled with him over his 

 hard luck, then passed on. 



Noticeable by their absence were the 

 grebes. We saw but one of these duck- 

 like birds on the trip, where 5 years ago 

 large flocks were found. Several species 

 of grebes inhabit that region; the most 

 common being the horned grebe, next Hol- 

 boell's grebe, then the piedbill and eared 

 grebes. Time was when these interesting 

 birds were amply able to take care of them- 

 selves, but since the invention of smokeless 

 powder and the demand by milliners for 

 the breasts of grebes the birds are fast 

 being exterminated. They are remarkable 

 swimmers and divers, and when fired at 

 with a shot gun loaded with black powder 

 they dive at the sight of the flash and are 

 out of harm's way before the shot reaches 

 the spot. In Canada and the Northwest- 

 ern United States thousands of grebes are 

 killed by plume hunters. During the breed- 

 ing season the plume hunters secrete them- 

 selves near the grebes' floating nests of 

 reeds, and by using smokeless powder 

 slaughter the parent birds when they return 

 to their eggs or young. 



All along the route we were greeted by 

 the spring songs of the chickadee and the 

 nuthatch, and from a cluster of maples 

 came the familiar rapping of a- hairy wood- 

 pecker. Had I been ashore I could have 

 called him closer by tapping on a dead tree 

 with the back of my knife, as I have many 

 times done. 



A flock of redwing blackbirds passed 

 over and rested a few minutes in the top 

 of a' large maple tree, before continuing 

 North. During the spring migrations the 

 males precede the females by several days, 

 and these were the advance guard of old 

 males. Among the babble of voices I rec- 

 ognized the notes of the rustic and purple 

 grackles. They were evidently enjoying 

 the sociability of the redwings while on the 

 long journey to their breeding grounds. 

 They will then separate, and after the 

 nestlings have been reared their families 

 will unite and spend the harvest days about 

 the country meadows and grain fields, 

 where the damage they do to crops' is more 

 than compensated for by the large number 

 of insects and larvae destroyed early in the 

 season. 



All the birds seen were species that win- 

 tered not far South ; the robin, song spar- 

 row, meadow lark, blue bird and belted 

 kingfisher. They are birds which hurry 

 North with the first warm days, only to be 

 driven back several times by cold waves 

 before summer really begins. Such birds as 

 the Baltimore oriole, chimney swift, ruby 

 throated humming bird, and many of the 



