September, 1919 
FOREST AND S T R E A :\I 
481 
SAVE THE QUAIL 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
A fter reading “The Case of the 
Quail” in your July number, I am 
prompted to write you my idea of the 
situation. 
I have hunted the real Ruffed Grouse 
in New Hampshire and they are a real 
game bird. It requires a good, quick 
shot to get one and, besides the sport- 
ing value, there is some meat on a part- 
ridge. But with a quail, it is a great 
deal different. To be sure, they fly fast 
and it takes a good shot to stop them, 
but after you get your quail, what have 
you? Nothing, as far as a meal is con- 
cerned and you have deliberately de- 
prived some farmer and the community 
of something that keeps down pests, and 
by so doing helps to produce your bread, 
your beef, your fruit and your living. 
I have heard and seen more quail this 
spring than ever before. They are in 
our woods, our orchards, our grain, and 
our meadows. We, the farmers, raise 
them; we feed them and our woods pro- 
tect them. But there are few farmers 
who shoot them. In the fall we see a 
machine stop alongside our stubble field; 
two or three men alight with three or 
four dogs. They trespass our fields and 
if they leave any quail it is in most cases 
because they couldn’t hit them. It is an 
outrage. The quail does practically no 
harm. He consumes grain that would 
ordinarily be wasted and controls mil- 
lions upon millions of w'eeds and bugs 
and worms. He is the best friend '-f the 
farmer. If there were more quail the 
farmer could raise more wheat per acre, 
more grass per acre and could pasture 
more cattle per acre. It is a detriment 
to the world that men are allowed ti 
shoot these beautiful birds. If you must 
shoot, shoot clay pigeons. But put a 
close season on quail for at least five 
years. 
J. E. Way, Delaware. 
HAWKS IN MICHIGAN 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
W ITH June ends the hawk-hunting 
season in Port Austin, Mich. No 
one seems to be able to explain their com- 
ing in such great numbers every spring, 
but farmers three miles from the shore 
of Lake Huron say they do not pass 
over their farms in flocks. John But- 
tars, pioneer, declares he saw a hawk 
here only occasionally in the days, when 
wild pigeons darkened the sun by their 
numbers. A few days ago, three flocks 
of hawks passed over Port Austin, simul- 
taneously. One was flying quite low and 
hunters bagged a number. Those in the 
layer above appeared to citizens about 
the size of robins and those in a great 
flock at a higher altitude appeared like 
sparrows. Leslie Watt says there were 
not less than 5,000 hawks in these 
flocks. Port Austin is at the end of the 
thumb of Michigan and, with no shore 
running north to follow, the birds stop 
here to get their bearings. 
There is a bounty of 50 cents a head 
on the birds and some hunters have 
made $50 in one day. Recently one man 
shot 96 in one day and another bagged 
25 birds the same day. 
Chas. H. Cowles, Port Austin, Mich. 
WHERE THE STRIPED BASS 
SPAWN 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
1 AM enclosing a kodak picture of four 
striped bass caught near Weldon, on 
the Roanoke River. And a few remarks 
concerning the catching of striped bass 
in this stream from year to year, think- 
ing perhaps it would be of interest to 
some of the fishermen who enjoy catch- 
ing these fish in the surf along the coast 
with rod and line. These fish weighed 
52. 50, 28, and 24 pounds. 
Probably you and your readers will 
recall that the Roanoke River is a long 
stream formed by the Dan and Stanton 
Rivers uniting at Clarksville in North 
Carolina and flowing from that point in 
an easterly direction one hundred or more 
miles and emptying into Albermarle 
Striped bass caught in the Roanoke River, 
North Carolina 
Sound. This riv'er is composed of al- 
ternately smooth stretches and rapids 
above Weldon, but from Weldon to the 
sound there are no rapids. This is the 
only stream in this section and, so far 
as I am informed, is the only stream 
on the Atlantic Coast that is the natural 
spawning ground of this fish. 
Annually about the first of April these 
fish appear in this stream at this point 
and continue here up to about June first, 
depending to some degree on the warmth 
of the spring weather. They then re- 
turn to salt water. They rarely go above 
this point as the rapids here stop them 
except on high water, at which times I 
have known them to be caught as far 
as seven mi’es above this point. When 
returning, after the water falls, they 
have been caught in large numbers and 
of large size on a kind of slat fish trap. 
put in the swift places in the rapids 
above this point. 
The run this year has been larger than 
has been known in years and some- 
what earlier than usual, due to the early 
spring, though the fish are not so plen- 
tiful as they were in years past, as 
described by older fishermen who have 
kept up -with these things for years. 
The U. S. Fish Commission maintains 
a hatchery here and buys all of the eggs 
obtainable that are caught in a ripe con- 
dition and pays $20.00 per million for 
them. In this way it saves for the future 
supply, millions of eggs annually, though 
the amount of eggs caught in the condi- 
tion to hatch is very small, as com- 
pared to the amount that are unripe and 
will not hatch. 
The four fish shown in the photograph 
contained, by conservative estimate, 
twelve million eggs, none of which were 
ripe and were therefore worthless for 
hatching purposes. They would have 
brought $240.00 had they been ripe which 
would have been the case in five to ten 
days had they been put back in the river 
when caught. They would probably have 
been taken again when ripe, or if not 
would have been left to spawn in the 
river. 
The proportion of bucks to roes taken 
is very much greater in favor of the 
bucks, most of which are twelve to twen- 
ty-four inches long, and are taken in 
numbers ten to twenty times greater than 
roes, which are generally larger, some- 
times weighing more than seventy-five 
pounds. 
The method of taking these fish is 
with a bow net, having a bow about six 
feet in diameter with handle about six- 
teen feet long. Attached to the bow is 
7 ret with bag, extending about six feet 
behind the bow. One man paddles the 
boat down stream and another in the 
head of a flat bottom canoe immerses the 
net with handle perpendicular and the 
bow at right angles to the boat. As 
fish are coming up-stream they run into 
the net and can be pulled in when a 
strike is felt by the man holding the net. 
It seems to us here, who see this fish- 
ing from year to year and are interested 
in the future supply at this point, and 
also some who are interested in the 
future supply in their natural haunts 
after they leave this, their spawning 
ground, that some plan should be de- 
vised whereby all of the roes larger 
than ten pounds could be returned to 
the water when taken unripe, so as to in- 
sure a larger supply of eggs for propa- 
gation. As mentioned before, the same 
fish that is taken unripe, if returned to 
water, would more than likely be again 
taken when ripe, at which time the value 
would be much greater. 
If you have any information contra- 
dictory to what I have given as to the 
natural habits of striped bass, I would 
be glad to be corrected as I am not a 
fish expert, but I can see that the tak- 
ing of these large fish unripe is a waste 
that should be stopped and can be stopped 
if a little concerted effort is put forth 
in the right direction. 
A. C. House, North Carolina. 
