Feb. 3, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
145 
structions which it received from that confer¬ 
ence. Although these instructions were explicitly 
to prepare a Bayne bill for Massachusetts, the 
committee has now presented a bill which prac¬ 
tically does nothing more than to stop the sale 
of shore birds. By permitting the sale of all 
wildfowl and big-game animals killed outside of 
Massachusetts, it not only encourages the illegal 
killing for sale of those species within this State 
and fails utterly to help the conservation of 
game in any part of the Union, but also effect¬ 
ually renders entirely useless its elaborate pro¬ 
visions avowedly designed to build up a licensed 
game-breeding industry by permitting the com¬ 
petition of wild game from all parts of the 
country. 
If the enemies of wild life had been asked 
to draft a bill to suit their interests and make 
the sportsmen of Massachusetts appear ridicu¬ 
lous, they could hardly have improved upon the 
bill which has been so emasculated from its 
original form, which original I now submit. Had 
the committee, narrowly divided on the matter 
as it was, been required to report back to the 
conference by which it was appointed, there can 
be no question but that its report would have 
been emphatically rejected. It is because its bill 
can never command the support of the mass of 
true sportsmen and wild life protectors in this 
Commonwealth that the bill herewith inclosed 
was introduced. This bill in all its essentials 
is the Bayne law adapted to Massachusetts. 
However imperfect in minor respects, it em¬ 
bodies the principles upon which all who are not 
backsliders can and will unite, and by working 
earnestly and in harmony place upon the statute 
books. WiLLi.\M P. Wharton. 
[Section i of the bill makes it unlawful, “ex¬ 
cept as hereinafter provided, to sell, offer for 
sale, have in possession for purposes of sale, or 
buy any birds or quadrupeds protected by law 
at any season in any part of the United States, 
or any part thereof, whenever or wherever taken 
or killed.” Other sections provide for the rear¬ 
ing of game for market, under license, and the 
sale of European game. —Editor.] 
Game Birds in Connecticut. 
Packer, Conn., Jan. 20. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: We have had three or four snows, one 
on top of another, one of them heavily sleet 
covered, hiding every square inch of ground, 
and thus every weed, seed and acorn, and the 
very important grit needed by quail especially. 
At the same time the temperature was repeatedly 
much lower than normal, 20 to 30 degrees below 
on more than one occasion during the past ten 
days. The hungry crows and bluejays were 
tamer and less noisy than usual, and surely were 
living on short rations. A squirrel also seemed 
unusually active, and in a hurry to find some¬ 
thing to eat. The rabbit tracks were abundant, 
but their droppings few and far apart. They 
must live on the young twigs or sprouts, and 
few of these seem acceptable. Deer, too, did a 
lot of wandering, searching for food, doubtless. 
The tracks of seven crossed just back of my 
house, among the apple trees, but I could not 
see that one twig had been eaten. My experi¬ 
ence with deer in orchard, garden and field has 
been quite different' from that of the farmers 
who complain in the agricultural papers of the 
great damage done by these interesting animals. 
One farmer told me he had counted nine pas¬ 
turing with his cows, but would no more think 
of killing one than he would of shooting the 
gray squirrels that made their homes in his 
shade trees. Some write as if they would like 
to exterminate them. 
Now the snow is nearly gone and the weather 
mild. The ruffed grouse, quail, rabbits, squirrels 
and jays can get the acorns if any are left. The 
deer, too, eat acorns, I believe; in fact, live 
quite largely on them, judging from their tracks 
under the oak trees. Grit is once more available 
to grind the acorns and weed seeds for quail 
and jays. The partridges do not suffer so great¬ 
ly for grit, I believe, as they eat buds when 
acorns are not to be had, and these are more 
easily digested. 
When the snow was melting I took a walk 
in the woods to see how the birds and animals 
were faring, and think they came through all 
right. The rabbits seemed to be on the move 
at mid-day, which I had never before noticed. 
Probably they were driven by hunger to leave 
their forms and burrows as soon as the ground 
became bare in spots. I saw where one rabbit 
had come out of his burrow and taken a bath 
in the wet snow, leaving a dirty spot where he 
had wallow’ed. 
Mr. Morgan raises an interesting question, the 
weight of quail. I would not have thought 714 
ounces a large one. But if really weighed on 
apothecary’s scales, as stated, 714 ounces is near¬ 
ly 8 ounces avoirdupois; 7.954 to be near'y exact. 
Many druggists, however, use avoirdupois rather 
than apothecary scales in most of their weigh¬ 
ing. Reports from your readers on weights of 
large quail killed in many sections of our coun¬ 
try would be interesting. Weights of ruffed 
grouse—partridge in the East and pheasant in 
the South and West—and rabbits would also be 
of interest. I do not believe the cottontails of 
this section much more than half the weight of 
that of the corn-fed rabbits of the Central West. 
A game dealer in New York once told me the 
quail of Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana were 
the largest that reached his market. A friend 
quite familiar with Long Island tells me that 
one district of that island produces the largest 
in America. Where do the largest grow, avoir¬ 
dupois ? 
Still another question I would like to see dis¬ 
cussed is the proportions, male to female, both 
of quail and rabbits. At one time a friend and 
I kept careful account of our bags of quail, 
and found far more cock than hen birds. A man 
who hunted rabbits with ferrets told me he made 
a practice, particularly late in the season, of 
liberating all females he caught, and that fully 
five out of six were males. I also heard an old 
hunter and trapper say that in winter all rabbits 
were male, while in summer every adult rabbit 
caught would be a female. What can your 
gifted writers tell us as to this? Farmers who 
were also hunters and interested in the quail 
crop have told me of small bevies of quail that 
did not mate in summer as usual. I asked them 
to examine them carefully when again they saw 
them, and see if they were not all male birds. 
Later they were so reported. I have understood 
these bevies of male quail are very disturbing 
to the mated birds, as the male quail does his 
share of the incubating, and is often driven from 
his nest and kept fighting until the eggs are cold. 
Grizzly King raises the question of the rapidity 
of rabbits breeding, quoting a “thoughtful writer” 
as saying one pair would amount to 1,278,840 in 
four years; of course, barring all accidents. My 
mind revels in figures, and I find each pair would 
have to be the progenitors of fifty-six yearly to 
bring this result in four years. This is on the 
basis that half are of each sex. If a large per¬ 
centage were does, it would be easy. Rabbits, 
are said to carry their young only thirty days, 
and that the doe will breed within twenty-four 
hours after dropping her young. Then the does 
of the first and second litters in each year begin 
breeding before the summer is over. Thus fifty- 
six per year is not at all unlikely. But that no 
accident will happen is unlikely. Foxes, dogs, 
cats, owls, hawks, minks, weasels and men like 
rabbits, and some of these have it quite often on 
their bill of fare. Under conditions favorable 
to breeding and freedom from enemies, rabbits, 
quail and grouse multiply at a rate that should 
make shooting a more satisfactory sport than it 
has been of late. One pair of quail breeding at 
the rate of only eighteen young per year would 
at the end of ten years, barring all accidents, 
reach the enormous number of twenty billion. 
One pair of rabbits bringing forth only thirty- 
eight a year would amount to 20,480 billion. 
E. P. Robinson. 
Death of Rutherford Page. 
Rutherford Page, whose name is familiar to 
Forest and Stream readers as having taken 
many beautiful photographs of Rocky Moun¬ 
tain scenery and pack trail travel, died in Cali¬ 
fornia, Monday, Jan. 22. 
Within a few months he had become deeply 
interested in the science of aviation, and had 
been studying the subject and making flights at 
the Curtis school at San Diego. On Jan. 20 he 
received his license as a pilot. On the 22d he 
entered a general meet near Los Angeles and 
competed in some of the events, winning one of 
them over Beachey, a very skillful and experi¬ 
enced aviator. Later in the afternoon, flying in 
a stiff wind, he struck an adverse current of air, 
the aeroplane turned turtle and he fell from a 
height of seventy-five feet, his engine falling on 
him. He was instantly killed. 
Mr. Page was a devoted sportsman. Though 
only twenty-four years old, he had done shoot¬ 
ing in the East, and had had experience with big 
game in the Northern Rocky Mountains. He re¬ 
cently planned a trip to Alaska, which, however, 
he gave up in view of his interest in aviation. 
He felt a keen interest in natural things and 
was a good observer. About eight years ago 
he and his brother took from a burrow in 
the Connecticut woods three or four short-tailed 
nondescript animals, whose eyes were not yet 
opened, and which no one recognized. These 
tiny creatures were given to a cat to nurse, 
and were watched until they developed into gray 
foxes. The two brothers wrote an interesting 
article on the observation, which was published 
in Forest and Stream. 
Rutherford Page was an able, alert, high- 
couraged young man, whose charm of manner 
and ready sympathy won for him the liking and 
affection of those with whom he came in con¬ 
tact. Had he lived, a bright future lay before 
him. 
