Aug. i8, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
2 55 
IN THE LAURENTIAN CLUB PRESERVE. 
Photo by E. N. Lawrence. 
serve can be taught to respond to a call or 
whistle if always repeated at feeding time. 
Pheasants lay their first eggs in the latter part 
of March until July, and nests should be pro¬ 
vided for them prior to this period. The breed¬ 
ing hens should be placed in the pens with the 
male bird before the first of March, and they 
should not be disturbed in any way by visitors. 
Pine boughs should be cut and stacked in one 
corner of the pens, and a rough nest made out 
of hay with a nest egg in it. Most of the eggs 
will be laid in the nest, but some may be dropped 
in different parts of the pen. They must be 
looked for carefully and gathered as fast as 
dropped. A good Cochin bantam hen makes a 
better mother than the pheasant hen. The eggs 
should be placed under such a bantam hen until 
hatched, when the little pheasants can be handled 
easily without disturbing the rest of the flock. 
Some use the incubator, and if there is trouble 
with vermin, scaly legs and other diseases, this 
may prove the best way. The eggs of the gol¬ 
den pheasants hatch in about three weeks, and 
those of most other varieties in about twenty- 
four days. The cost of feeding 500 pheasants 
when first hatched is generally placed at about 
five dollars for the first thirty days, and for six 
months old birds the cost varies from six to ten 
cents per bird for each month. In the winter 
the pheasants will do nicely out of doors if pro¬ 
vided with sheltered roosts. They are hardy, 
and much more prolific in the spring if wintered 
out of doors. 
A strong, healthy quail will lay from forty to> 
seventy eggs a year, and from seventy to ninety 
per cent, of these can be successfully hatched 
under proper conditions. A quail cannot cover 
more than fifteen to eighteen eggs and make a 
good hatch. Some hens lay twenty-five to thirty 
eggs before beginning to sit, and it is manifestly 
necessary to take some away from her. The first 
three eggs laid in the nest are rarely fertile, and 
to replace them with artificial eggs is economy. 
They may be marked with a pencil, and later 
when the nest is full they can be removed. About 
ninety-six per cent, of the rest of the eggs are 
fertile and can be hatched under normal con¬ 
ditions. The quails will hatch their own eggs, 
and it is better to let them do it. If hatched 
under a bantam hen each young quail must be 
fed carefully and separately, calling for an im¬ 
mense amount of work and attention to details. 
Our Northern and Western quail are better for 
game preserves in the cold States than the Mary¬ 
land or Southern birds, for they are stronger, 
hardier and accustomed to hunt and scratch for 
their food. 
A few prairie chickens and partridges raised 
on the small game preserve adds variety and in¬ 
terest to the work. In breeding these birds 
nearly the same conditions are required as for 
pheasants. They should be reared in a large pen 
with as extensive a run as possible. The run 
should consist of natural woodlands and open 
fields with water flowing through them if pos¬ 
sible. They do better in scrub pines than in 
thickets of mixed trees. The fields should be 
sown with wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa and South¬ 
ern peas. In such a pen the birds will make 
their own nest, but usually it is better to hunt 
for the eggs and hatch them under bantam hens. 
The prairie chickens lay from twenty to thirty 
eggs a season, and partridges from twelve to 
twenty eggs. They hatch out in from twenty- 
four to thirty days. When the young chicks are 
old enough to take care of themselves, they can 
be turned out into the open preserve, where they 
will wander around and mate with others of their 
kind. If the preserve is inclosed with a close- 
woven wire fence ten or fifteen feet high, few 
of the birds will leave the preserve unless fright¬ 
ened by dogs, guns or noisy visitors. The birds 
learn to know where they are well treated. And 
good treatment means kindness, an abundance of 
food, good water, natural woods and fields, and 
freedom from annoying enemies. Even if a few 
do fly away, the loss can easily be remedied by 
raising more broods another season. 
Raising wild ducks and geese on a small pre¬ 
serve has proved successful to a degree. A 
couple of pairs of breeders will invariably pro¬ 
duce sufficient stock for ordinary purposes. The 
wild Canadian gander can be mated with either 
the Emden, Toulouse or African female, and 
the union yields a mongrel goose that is most 
excellent for show purposes. These mongrel 
geese also make the finest table fowls, and many 
of them are sold in the markets at the highest 
prices paid for wild geese. 
Water fowl can be raised, however, only where 
a natural or artificial pond or lake is located on 
the preserve. Where a small brook flows 
through the woodland, it is a simple matter to 
construct a pond useful for all purposes. Quail, 
ducks, partridges and pheasants appreciate the 
presence of such a pond. The wild ducks, geese, 
partridges, prairie chickens and quail can be kept 
within a preserve of thirty or more acres by pin¬ 
ioning them. This is better than clipping them 
Even the choice pheasants are pinioned on the 
best preserves. It disfigures slightly the hand¬ 
some pheasants, and spoils them for exhibition 
and park purposes, but it makes it impossible 
for them to fly over an ordinary wire fence. The 
process of pinioning is not difficult or cruel as 
many imagine. It consists of clipping off the 
wing just this side of the first joint with a pair 
of sharp, heavy scissors. The wound heals 
within a week, and the bird suffers no more 
from the injury. But once pinioned, they never 
recover their power of high flight, and there is 
no danger of losing valuable birds later. If clip¬ 
ping is resorted to, both wings should be clipped, 
and not one. When one wing is clipped the 
birds will try to fly, and as a result heavy falls 
frequently follow. The birds that are clipped 
or pinioned when young, never meet with such 
accidents. 
Have we any right to deprive the wild birds 
of their power of flight? Is it not a cruelty that 
can find no justification? There are two sides 
to such questions. In a well protected game pre¬ 
serve it is more than probable that pinioned wild 
birds will find more happiness in life than if 
given their freedom in a land where dangers 
lurk at every corner. They never suffer from 
hunger, exposure or destruction from dogs, cats 
or gunners in the preserve, and with natural 
conditions of wild life provided they thrive and 
multiply with plenty of companions. In time much 
of their wild nature is tamed, and they grow satis¬ 
fied and contented in their home. 
Fancy pigeons raised near the house or bam 
on a small game preserve adds greatly to the 
pleasures of the work. A pigeon loft, with nest¬ 
ing places, and ample grounds for exercise, may 
prove one of the most attractive features of the 
enterprise. Homing pigeons, fantails, tumblers 
and pouters become friends that increase one’s 
interest in nature and the country. The ease 
