Feb. 15, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
205 
short distance noticed where one track had gone 
off to right of the others, and only a few steps 
away sat the bird in the snow apparently asleep. 
I walked toward it, but it made no effort to fly, 
so 1 tossed some snow at it. Still it did not fly. 
1 picked it up dead, but still warm. I again 
followed the bevy, and soon found another dead, 
and then still another. When I found the bevy, 
the remainder were all able to fly, but no doubt 
died before next day. I went then to another 
field, a very weedy cornfield, with abundance of 
rag weeds and wild millet or foxtail. I found 
tracks of a larger bevy and again picked up 
dead birds at the side of their path, one of 
which had enough life in it to open its eyes, 
but to make no effort to get away. 
It was very plain these birds had plenty of 
feed easy to get, and they could not be freez¬ 
ing to death when snow was thawing. At the 
time I did not think to examine their crops and 
gizzards to see if death was due to failure to 
get grit, but a later experience led me to at¬ 
tribute their death to this cause. That experi¬ 
ence was in the use of poultry droppings to 
make liquid manure for plants in pots. I found 
quite a large percentage of the droppings con¬ 
sisted of gravel or grit. I had long known 
poultry had no teeth and ground their food with 
grit, but did not know the grit passed out with 
the droppings and had to be constantly replen¬ 
ished. Yet later I saw men unloading a car of 
grit for a large poultry grower, 500 bags of 100 
pounds each for a single grower. Of late years 
I have spent many hours breaking up broken 
dishes, glass, etc., for my poultry. They are 
often far more greedy for this than any feed I 
can offer them, and this on a place where gravel 
is not at all scarce or difficult to get; I believe 
any reader of these lines who has poultry will 
find it an interesting experiment to break up 
some dish or queensware about the size of corn 
grains and toss it to his hens. And if the ground 
has been covered with snow for a week or two 
before, it will be all the more emphatic. All 
progressive poultry growers supply their stock 
with grit now, all supply houses having it for 
sale. 
These are my reasons for believing quail 
die, not because of cold or lack of food, but 
from lack of grit with which to grind the food 
they can nearly always find on weeds above the 
snow. Therefore, I would advise all those who 
distribute food for quail in severe weather to 
include a liberal supply of medium size poultry 
grit. 
’Our deer are also increasing rapidly. I see 
them feeding in my fields often, and helping 
themselves to apples in the orchard. One came 
by the house a few days since, soon followed 
by two hounds. The fox hunters complain the 
deer are so plentiful that their hounds more 
often trail deer than foxes. 
E. P. Robinson. 
Fox Hunting in North Carolina. 
Raleigh, -N. C., Jan. 28. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: George McCullers, one of Wake’s 
veteran fox hunters, whose home is at Mc¬ 
Cullers, eleven miles south of Raleigh, brought 
in to-day a very fine “brush,” and it is of a 
fox which has quite a history. Three years ago 
Mr. Beale Johnson brought a couple of gray 
foxes from Florida, marking the ears of each. 
Two weeks ago Mr. McCullers was out with his 
fine pack of hounds, and after an hour’s run 
caught one of these foxes. The “brush” is uncom¬ 
monly fine, and the animal, Mr. McCullers says, 
was a particularly handsome specimen and put 
up a game run. 
Last Saturday Mr. McCullers and his pack 
were joined by Beale Johnson and his pack and 
by some other sportsmen. There was a stirring- 
chase, lasting an hour and fifty minutes, when 
the fox was taken in the top of a pine tree. 
During the chase the fox was seen at least 
twenty-five times by different members of the 
party, and he put up a splendid run. This fox 
had been chased several times before, but has 
escaped by a very strange trick, this being run¬ 
ning in front of a train. Saturday he tried the 
same trick, but was seen some distance ahead 
of the train, and the dogs contrived to drive him 
off the track and this was his undoing. 
Fred A. Olds. 
Tricks of Class Legislation Exposed. 
Berkeley, Cal., Jan. 21 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Through its subsidized papers, the 
Hotel Men's Lobby at Sacramento falsely pre¬ 
tends that gun clubs have started the no-sale-of- 
game movement, intending thus to disparage it 
in the eyes of the people. Remember that the 
California Associated Societies have originated 
the bill introduced by Senator Flint. It is a 
measure drawn in the interest of all the people, 
and cuts out the abuse of public privilege by 
hotel men and market hunters. 
A hotel man who argues on behalf of game 
to be sold to the "poor man” and then charges 
him for wild duck at the rate of $1.50 to $2.50 
apiece is a curiosity—until you find out that this 
same hotel man at $2.00 a duck can make a 
gross average of $300 a week out of twenty- 
five ducks a day and have enough left to pay 
the hunter handsome wages! 
Enlightened game legislation like that of 
England and Germany long ago provided against 
the destructive combination of hotel men and 
market hunters. A special fee and license are 
required of the man who hunts to sell game. 
The game dealer also must have a special license 
and “inkeepers” are expressly prohibited from 
holding hunting licenses. 
But we allow these classes to lobby openly 
in Sacramento for the retention and enlargement 
of their special privileges which are utterly de¬ 
structive of the public interest in game. En¬ 
lightened public policy demands the immediate 
enactment of a no-sale law, or the imposition 
of a severe handicap on the market hunter. 
Remember that twenty-one States of the 
Union have already prohibited the sale of 
.A.merican-killed wild game. Most of those 
which remain have nothing to preserve. Is 
California going to lag behind? New York 
State, in opposition to the most powerful hotel 
loliby in the country, passed the no-sale law 
unanimously in the Assembly. Even Nevada has 
a no-sale law. In every case market hunters and 
hotel men have bitterly opposed this last and 
only check upon utter destruction. 
If, as alleged, hunting has become too ex¬ 
clusively the privilege of “gentlemen sportsmen” 
—and gun clubs say this abuse should be regulated 
independently of the no-sale law—they may be 
required to furnish a certain percentage of the 
bag limit for sale under tag; or it may be de¬ 
clared illegal to lease hunting privileges, com¬ 
pelling ownership of hunting preserves, or the 
baiting of ponds may be made illegal. These 
are matters for legislators to adjust from time 
to time. But the sale of game in the open 
market should be prohibited at once. 
What became of the passenger pigeon, one 
time the most abundant game bird of the United 
States? Read Mershon’s book on this bird, and 
you will find that market-hunters and hotel men 
combined to bring about its extinction. One 
and a half million birds were killed and trapped 
at a few nesting sites in Michigan alone. When 
the matter of conservation was brought up, game 
dealers and hotel men urged against it the same 
argument which the hotel men's lobby in San 
Francisco is now putting forward. Last season 
one market hunter is known to have killed 280 
band-tailed pigeons under one tree during one 
day’s flight at Santa Barbara. The end of such 
policy is extinction of all California game just 
as the passenger pigeon is now utterly extinct. 
Everyone interested in the conservation of 
wild life should urge his representative in the 
Legislature to work for the passage of the Flint 
bill to stop the awful slaughter of game for sale. 
William Frederic Bade. 
New Publication. 
Three Wonderlands of the American West, 
by Thomas D. Murphy. Illustrated with 
sixteen plates in full color and thirty-two 
duogravure plates from copyrighted paint¬ 
ings and photographs. L. C. Page & Com¬ 
pany, Boston, Mass. Price $3.00. 
This interesting publication contains the notes 
of a traveler on the Yellowstone Park, the 
Yosemite National Park and the Grand Canon 
of the Colorado River, and a chapter on other 
wonders of the great American West. It will 
strongly appeal to travelers and lovers of nature 
who appreciate the inspiring wonders of the West 
—the land of weird mountains, crystal cataracts 
and emerald rivers, all glowing with endless play 
of light and color. 
How Much Does a Fish Shrink? 
Oakland, Cal., Jan. 15 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of Jan. 4 there is a rather 
facetious article under the above heading. 
In a Forest and Stream of several years 
ago I remember reading the following: 
An old darkey went a-fishing one day, but 
for several hours had no success. Finally he 
landed an enormous sucker. Delighted with the 
catch, he sat down upon a sunny bank to con¬ 
template it, when he fell asleep. Soon there 
came along another darkey, also engaged in the 
same agreeable recreation. He had quite a string, 
of fish, but there was no sucker on his string 
that approached in size the one mentioned. Re¬ 
moving the big fish from the string of his sleep¬ 
ing compatriot, he substituted a small one from 
his own and passed on. Later on darkey No. i 
awoke, and his first thought was for his mag¬ 
nificent prize. Holding it in the air with a look 
of dismay, he exclaimed: “Golly, how dat 
sucker am swunck!’ 
Just how much “dat sucker am swunck” was 
not stated, but in estimating the shrinkage of 
fish, instances of this kind should by no means 
be overlooked. Forked Deer. 
