—-•'S'*! 
s or Establish New Shooting Fields 
Successfully 
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one for each human inhabitant^Wl^hat rea¬ 
son is the infernal greed and selfishness of 
the men who have almost exterminated our 
quail by over-shooting. Don’t talk to me 
about the ‘hard winters’ killing off our quail! 
It is the hard cheek of the men who shoot 
them when they ought to let them alone.” 
‘‘In 1879 a well-organized effort was made 
to introduce European quail into several of 
the New England and Middle States—to take 
the place of the bob white, we may suppose, 
the bird that ‘can’t stand the winters.’ About 
3,000 birds were distributed and set free—and 
went down and out, just as might have been 
expected. During the past twenty years it is 
safe to say that not less than $ 500,000 have 
been expended in the northern states, and 
particularly in the northeastern states, in im¬ 
porting live quail from Kansas, the Indian 
Territory, Oklahoma, Texas, the Carolinas and 
other southern states, for restocking areas 
from which the northern bob white had been 
exterminated by foolish over-shooting! I 
think that fully nine-tenths of these efforts 
have ended in total failure. The quail could 
not survive in their strange environment. I 
cannot recall a single instance in which re¬ 
stocking northern covers with southern quail 
has been a success.” 
The statements contained in these para¬ 
graphs were contradictory and so diametrical¬ 
ly opposed to my own experience that I awak¬ 
ened to the fact that what I was taking for 
that our native stock was practically exter¬ 
minated. For the years 1905 , 1906 and 1907 
we obtained birds from Mr. Payne of Wichita, 
Kansas, which came from Oklahoma and the 
Indian Territory, and we liberated part of 
these birds early in March of each year and 
late in December toward the close of the 
shooting season. The old native Long Island 
ystock were large plump birds, averaging 7 to 
ounces in weight, while these liberated 
did not run much, if any, over 5 % to 6 
ices. 
the years passed by we noticed that the 
lendants of these liberated birds were re- 
What is the Answer? Forest and Stream Solicits Explanations From Subscribers as to 
What Conversation Is Passing Between These Two Men. 
During the autumn of 1904 there was an ex¬ 
tremely heavy snowfall at the eastern end of 
Long Island averaging over fifteen inches on 
the level in the open fields and about thirty 
inches in the woods where the underbrush 
helped to bear up the snow. At the end of 
that storm I went out on an inspection of our 
property and after two or three hours’ search 
I found three quail, one of which I shot. When 
I picked it up I found that it was nothing but 
a frame-work, of skin and bone covered with 
feathers. We immediately took steps to ob¬ 
tain a fresh supply of birds to be delivered to 
us the following spring, as we were convinced 
verting more and more to the type of the 
natives both in size and color, until to-day 
there are many which are scarcely distinguish¬ 
able in their markings and weight from the 
original Long Island stock. 
This experiment, if indeed it may be called 
an experiment, of restocking our preserve has 
been so highly successful that I think it is 
worth being called to the attention of all 
shooting clubs and individuals in this vicinity 
who may suffer from a temporary shortage of 
quail. With us it was not altogether an ex¬ 
periment because I find that as far back as 
1891 the Flanders Club purchased quail com- 
