April 6, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
439 
Squirrels are in the drifts digging for such 
acorns as may be hidden away, but there was a 
light acorn supply last year. 
Now that there are sunny days again, the 
birds have made their appearance. The chick¬ 
adee is a bright, industrious fellow. Be it ever 
so cold, he is out with his appetite. The blue- 
jays are not so much in evidence. All the birds 
stay close to the thick-leaved coverts afforded 
by black oak, cedar and pine. 
Bird lovers all over the country should make 
it a point to feed birds in the winter. At the 
country house we have a large space cleared 
and keep a liberal supply of grain and crumbs, 
with pieces of suet attached to the limbs of the 
trees for the benefit of chickadees and wood¬ 
peckers that are regular visitors. We should 
do all in our power to spread the interest in 
bird study among the people. And in the spring 
do not forget to put up the bird houses, no 
matter if it is right in the city. I have seen 
places where there have been some ten to 
fifteen houses and every one of them occupied 
by a pair of birds. Martins and wrens are quick 
to come, as are also various other small birds. 
Farmers are, as a rule, pretty busy in sum¬ 
mer, but in the winter they have much time to 
themselves, and I think that were they duly in¬ 
structed in protection they would do all they 
could to help. They never receive much en¬ 
lightenment upon the subject. Literature should 
be supplied to representative sportsmen in 
every State, to be distributed among the 
farmers. 
A year or so ago Mrs. Buffum, of New Mexi¬ 
co, started a bird protection league, and it is 
good to know that her efforts have borne fruit. 
There is no limit to what this league could do, 
and it is pleasing also to note that our women 
are working with man in endeavoring to protect 
the birds. Nature study and bird protection 
should be taught the children in the schools. 
L. M. Grider, well known in the West as a 
game farmer of much experience, says; 
“Where among all their new-fangled im¬ 
ported game birds, on which thousands of dol¬ 
lars are being wasted annually, can they show 
one like our prairie chicken or ruffed grouse, 
or bobwhite, and last but not least, our grand 
California quail? 
“Can they show us among these imported 
birds one that could be turned out on the fields 
of North Dakota or Manitoba, which would 
survive a winter there? 
“Can you, or any one else, find any foreign 
game bird that is equal in sagacity to our ruffed 
grouse? That can hold his own anywhere as 
that bird is doing in the New England States 
to-day? 
“About once or twice a season some one 
hands out hot air about pheasants; the grand 
game birds they are; how easily they are propa¬ 
gated, and how money could be made breeding 
and raising them. 
“The fact, however, is, and I write from actual 
expensive experience, that the pheasants, as a 
rule, show very little intelligence and have only 
a small quantity of what we call self-preserva¬ 
tion. A small bobwhite or California valley 
quail can run them any time and anywhere. 
They will drop their eggs any old place and 
run and abandon their offspring at the slightest 
sign of danger. 
“To obtain any increase at all from them they 
must be hatched under bantam hens and they 
require constant supervision and attendance. 
Any bird that has to be nursed that way can 
certainly not be called a game bird fit to inhabit 
our depopulated fields and forests. They may 
do for parks , and poultry yards, but when it 
comes to where you turn them out and it means 
bird hunt, hide or die, they are lost every time. 
“Another and very important point generally 
not understood at all, or entirely ignored, is 
that you cannot raise any quail anywhere if 
there are pheasants about, as they will kill and 
eat every young quail and other small bird they 
can get hold of, and they have eaten hundreds 
of them in my yards until I discovered the male¬ 
factors. 
“There are millions of quail in Mexico. Let 
us open the law to have some of them imported 
NEST OF A LOON. 
and sold for breeding purposes throughout the 
country, and we will soon have a new supply of 
birds coming from a source that never produced 
any before, and cannot, with the laws interpreted 
as they are at the present time.” 
Robert Page Lincoln. 
Loon’s Nest. 
Worcester, Mass., March 27.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I send you herewith a photograph 
of a loon’s nest taken by me last June while fly¬ 
fishing for trout at Lyford Pond, Maine. It was 
located directly on the shore of the pond and 
about a foot above the water’s surface. It took 
me some time to find the nest, and I never should 
have suspected that it was there if it had not 
been for the peculiar actions of the old birds. 
They kept very near the canoe—we were an¬ 
chored—and tried in every way to attract our 
attention, in hopes, I suppose, that we would 
chase them and leave the vicinity of the nest. 
I made a careful search and finally found the 
nest, and got the picture. 
Charles A. Allen. 
More About the Starling. 
Raleigh, N. C., March 28 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: On the farm in the English midlands 
where I spent my boyhood, the starling was one 
of our commonest birds. Among the farm build¬ 
ings was a massive structure known as the 
pigeon house or dove house, commonly called 
the “dove’us” by the farm laborers. (And in 
parentheses I might remark that the chicken or 
hen house was always known as the “ ’en’us.”) 
The pigeon house was a square brick building 
of one room, with walls about four feet th'ck at 
the base and perpendicular on the outside. In¬ 
side, however, they gradually fell outward to¬ 
ward the top in a series of narrow steps, each 
step carrying its own row of nesting holes built 
in the thickness of the wall. 
It was a good place for pigeons, and there were 
pigeons there, lashings and lashings of them. 
And starlings, too! And the broken pigeon eggs 
that were always to be found on the floor were 
credited—perhaps on too slight evidence—to the 
starlings. Considering the matter at a distance, 
I now know that we acted on insufficient evidence 
in destroying all the eggs and young of the 
starlings that we could find, though it was com¬ 
monly accepted in the community that the 
starlings were pigeon egg destroyers. Every 
time the house was searched for squabs, we boys 
made a more thorough search for the starlings’ 
nests, and we would often find and destroy a 
hundred or more eggs and young in one search. 
As an offset to this, starlings were always in 
evidence on the permanent pastures grazed by 
sheep, feeding right in among the flock. And it 
was a common sight to see from one to three or 
four of these birds perched on the back of a 
single animal, many of the animals being thus 
attended. They were given credit for feeding on 
the ticks with which the sheep were infested. 
And the explanation is plausible, as the starling 
with us then was primarily a ground bird, and 
would not be likely to use the back of a living 
and moving animal simply as a perch. 
My only experience with starlings in America 
is the sight of a few running around on the grass 
in Central Park last summer. 
H. H. Brimley. 
New Publications. 
Guide to the Insects of Connecticut, by W. E. 
Britton and B. H, Walden. Paper, 192 
pages, numerous plates. 
This is Bulletin No. 16 of the Connecticut 
State Geological and Natural History Survey. 
Part 1 . relates to habits and haunts of insects, 
their distribution, characters, growth and meta¬ 
morphoses, and classification. Part 11 . relates to 
the earwigs, grasshoppers and crickets. 
Soyer’s Paper Bag Cookery, by Nicholas Soyer. 
Cloth, i2mo., 130 pages, 60 cents net. New 
York, the Sturgis & Walton Co. 
Everybody is interested in paper-bag cookery, 
in town, and everybody that camps may read this 
little manual with profit. Full particulars re¬ 
garding this method are given, followed by nu¬ 
merous recipes, a time table for various foods, 
and some excellent reasons given by Dr. Charles 
Reinhardt for improved methods of preparing 
food. 
