Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ( 
Six Months, $1.50. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1909. 
j VOL. LXXII,—No. 24. 
I No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
DOMESTICATED QUAIL. 
The interest in the efiforts to hand-rear wild 
birds in the United States constantly increases. 
At least two important States have for some 
years been endeavoring to propagate various 
gallinaceous birds—with as yet no great measure 
of success, so far as our native species are con¬ 
cerned. Pheasants, semi-domesticated fowls 
that have long been reared by hand, yield good 
results, but with- our native grouse and quail 
the matter is still in the experimental stage. 
Not a few naturalists and sportsmen doubt 
the wisdom of the wholesale introduction of 
exotic species like the pheasant and the Euro¬ 
pean partridge. No land in the world is so 
well provided with grouse and partridges as the 
United States, and no birds give better shoot¬ 
ing, are more interesting in habits, or more de¬ 
sirable as pets than our native species. Besides 
that we do not know what dangers we may be 
facing in dealing with these foreign species. 
It is most interesting, therefore, to read Mr. 
Ames’ account of the work done by Prof. C. F. 
Hodge, of Worcester, Mass., whose success in 
hatching, bringing to maturity and causing to 
breed in confinement our native grouse and quail 
has become so well known. This success has 
come to Prof. Pledge because the work is to 
him a pure labor of love, something into which 
he has thrown his whole heart. Hired men, 
whether employed by individuals or the State, 
are often just hired men, who may perform 
their duties well enough, but who lack the active 
and absorbing interest in their work felt by a 
man who has made it his hobby. In dealing 
with birds about whose domestic economy so 
little is known as our quail or grouse, mishaps 
of various kinds must constantly occur, but such 
mishaps come far oftener to the employee than 
they do to the actual owner who is constantly 
striving to guard against misfortune. 
What Prof. Hodge has done others may do 
and others will do, in time; but the initial suc¬ 
cess will be attained by enthusiasts. 
It is surprising that as yet no general efforts 
have been made to rear wildfowl in confinement, 
permitting the young birds to go away in the 
autumn in the hope that the following spring 
they will return to the place where they were 
hatched. In England this has been done on a 
large scale, and it appears to be so easily done 
that no doubt it will be undertaken here when¬ 
ever public sentiment shall encourage landowners 
to undertake the work. 
We recommend to every reader Mr. Ames’ 
delightful account of Prof. Hodge’s quail. 
WARDENS AND POLITICS. 
PoR the second time in three years Walter R. 
Welch has lost his position. Mr. Welch was a 
deputy fish commissioner of California in igo6. 
Honest, energetic, fearless, he was a terror to 
lawbreakers. He and a fellow deputy believed 
the executive agent of the commission—their 
superior—was not performing his duties accord¬ 
ing to law. They went to the commission and 
lodged their complaint, together with the evi¬ 
dence they had obtained. Shortly afterward both 
deputies were summarily discharged. 
There was a great hue and cry over this 
action. Sportsmen and their associations and 
the press were loud in their denunciation of the 
commission’s action. Later on Mr. Welch was 
appointed by the supervisors of Santa Cruz 
county to be fish, game and fire warden of that 
county. He made an excellent record, and aside 
from his regular duties, was of material service 
to the superintendent of the county fish hatchery 
and earned high praise from the Audubon So¬ 
cieties for his assistance in protecting birds and 
in educating the school children of the county 
in bird work. 
Last winter an effort was made in the Legisla¬ 
ture to secure from the fish commission a re¬ 
port of its disposition of the thousands of dol¬ 
lars paid by the sportsmen for shooting licenses. 
Mr. Welch was one of those who wrote to their 
representatives, commending the efforts in this 
direction. In May, while he was distributing 
trout in county streams, the supervisors of Santa 
Cruz county met and passed a resolution dis¬ 
charging Warden Welch. 
Again the sportsmen and the press are indig¬ 
nant, for the supervisors have admitted that 
Mr. Welch was discharged because he had ex¬ 
pressed his belief that the fish commission should 
render a report, according to law. The super¬ 
visors, in excusing the discharge of a com¬ 
petent officer, said they could not afford to 
antagonize the fish commission, “which was 
doing much for the county.” They had no fault 
to find with Warden Welch’s work, which they 
admitted had been of the highest order. Santa 
Cruz county has contributed some $5,000 to the 
shooting license fund and last year it received 
$2,400 from the fish commission to be used in 
maintaining the hatchery which the county owns. 
Warden Welch, like many another honest man 
of courage, has been made to pay the penalty 
for expressing his views. If there were a few 
more wardens like him in every State, the cause 
of game and fish protection would be on a firmer 
foundation. 
Too many wardens obtain their positions 
through political influence. Too few have the 
courage to jeopardize their political interests by 
enforcing the law without fear or favor. 
Ever since the warden system was established 
efforts have been made to keep it free from 
political influence. In some States wardens are 
ordered to let politics alone, and there honest 
efforts are made to appoint men for sheer merit, 
let the applicants’ political influence be great or 
small. Gains have been made here and there 
in this direction. In New York State protectors 
must pass civil service examinations, and the effi¬ 
ciency of the department has been greatly in¬ 
creased as a result. Conferences between the 
protectors and their chiefs, meetings in which 
the men are instructed in their duties as game 
protectors and as woodsmen, form an important 
part of the wardens’ work. 
Hard work, intelligently directed on practical 
lines, must be applied to the warden system of 
every State before it can be made entirely effec¬ 
tive. 
FISHING CONTESTS. 
An outcropping of the old spirit of the side 
hunt is found in a report that comes from Reno, 
Nev., where it is said ascertain young woman 
“holds several records for successful catches” 
of trout. It is also claimed that on one occasion 
she competed with several men in a fishing con¬ 
test and won with a catch of 125 trout in three 
hours’ fishing. This statement smacks of yellow 
journalism, for the waters that yield an aver¬ 
age of almost one trout a minute are not numer¬ 
ous to-day, even if their trout are hungry enough 
to rise to every cast, and nothing larger than 
fingerlin^s can be landed at this rapid-fire rate. 
Let the facts be what they may, the spirit 
which encourages contests of this sort is to be 
deprecated. Shooters of to-day who wish to 
demonstrate their skill do so at the traps or the 
butts, and anglers in contests for accurate and 
long casting, but not in the hunting fields or the 
streams. Fishing for number and weight is 
largely a thing of the past, though it crops out 
here and there at times. 
Not a few clubs keep records of the largest 
specimens taken in a season, and awards are 
frequently made, but it does not follow that 
these serve to encourage mere fishing, for 
notoriety, since the catches are made during out¬ 
ings taken at customary times, and which would 
be taken anyway. Such affairs give authentic 
records of the achievements of individuals dur¬ 
ing the course of their season’s sport, and are 
not to be compared with contests in which num¬ 
bers or pounds are counted. 
A C0MMEND.4BLE feature of the first Inter¬ 
national Elunting and Field Sports Exhibition, 
to be held in Vienna next year, will be the sec¬ 
tion devoted to the literature of shooting and 
various allied sports. As mentioned elsewhere 
in this issue, a special committee is engaged in 
collecting material for its department. Loans of 
books and prints are asked for, and it is prob-- 
able responses will be satisfactory. 
