FOREST AND STREAM 
405 
Propagation of our Native Game Birds and Aquatic Fowl 
A Distinguished Author Takes up the Question Practically and Points Out That the Road to 
Success Lies in Avoiding the Commoner Pitfalls 
By J. C. Phillips, Wenham, Mass. 
HE “Propagation of Wild Birds” 
by H. K. Job, which has just 
appeared, is a manual of Amer¬ 
ican game rearing. The book 
will fill a real want, for the 
literature of the subject was so 
scattered and inaccessible that 
the beginner found it hard to 
obtain information for his simplest problems 
and preliminary steps. 
The title of this manual is somewhat mis¬ 
leading, for it is devoted almost entirely to the 
propagation of game birds and wild fowl, only 
the last chapter dealing with the attraction of 
the 'perching birds. The propagation of native 
perching birds is not touched upon. 
The subject of Mr. job’s book is receiving 
so much attention now from coast to coast, 
and the problems encountered are so many and 
varied, that no work can stand the test of time, 
but any sketch which brings our present knowl¬ 
edge up-to-date fills a very useful field. Through¬ 
out the book, too, there is very little attempt at 
arbitrary rules and dogmatic food formulas, and 
we are nearly always given a liberal choice of 
methods through the citation of the experiences 
of various experts or experimenters. This, the 
writer feels, is the strongest point of the book, 
although this very method of presentation has 
led to certain rather obvious exaggerations, and 
misstatements, as is natural where many differ¬ 
ent men are hurriedly interviewed, or where 
their letters and answers are not sufficiently 
checked up and allowed for. 
1 he chapter devoted to the propagation of the 
Bob White and other American quails is, I 
think, the most valuable part, not only from the 
standpoint of the sportsman and the bird lover, 
but for th.e economic farmer as well, for at 
present no American bird offers the possibilities 
of colinus virginianus. It is very encouraging to 
learn that the Southwestern Bob Whites are 
turning out so well. In my own limited exper¬ 
ience these Mexican quail have proved better 
layers an'd earlier layers (this last an important 
point), and besides, they seeyi to be rather tame 
and more easily managed. This year I am try¬ 
ing three stocks of quail, first, Northern birds, 
second, Northern male and Southern female, 
third, Southern birds (colinus virginianus tex- 
etisis), and I hope to have something of interest 
to report. 
Mr. Job rightly says that quail lay irregularly 
in confinement, but most of all, as I well know, 
they sometimes in a most unreasonable way re¬ 
fuse to lay at all. He says captivity delays lay¬ 
ing. but this has not always been my experience 
This year, for instance, some birds, both North¬ 
ern and Southern stock, were laying the first 
week in May, an extremely early date for 
Massachusetts. 
The free range system, without fence (rearing- 
under bantam), which has been so successful at 
the New Jersey State farm, and at other places, 
is fully described and almost no details are 
omitted. This system is, of course, not an ideal 
one from an economic standpoint, because many 
birds become too wild to catch up in the fall, 
so that the breeder must figure upon a good ratio 
going back to the land. For game preserves and 
for farmers who wish to increase their quail, 
this loss is no objection, but it entails besides 
much more work in vermin trapping than is nec¬ 
essary with the ordinary pheasant system of 
rearing yards. With the present unsatisfactory 
state of our knowledge of quail disease, how¬ 
ever, any other system seems risky. 
The next chapter is devoted to American 
grouse, and it must be confessed that the diffi¬ 
culties and expense necessitated in rearing these 
birds has not been exaggerated. In fact, it has 
been underestimated, for the present status of 
our efforts with the bird are merely avicultural, 
not approaching an economic footing. Until 
grouse culture is carried far beyond this point 
(and the writer does not believe it ever will be) 
it ceases to have much more than a scientific 
interest. 
English, Dutch and German bird fanciers tell 
us that an enormous number of species of rare 
and delicate birds occasionally breed under ex¬ 
ceptionally favorable conditions, prizes some¬ 
times being awarded where a new species yields, 
but this is a very different thing from game prop¬ 
agation, and the reader must keep aviculture, in 
the sense that I am using it, and propagation, 
apart in his mind. Failure to do this has re¬ 
sulted in many grave disappointments and huge 
waste of money. 
On page 57 Job says the ruffed grouse is to 
“some extent” polygamous. This is hardly cor¬ 
rect, for all evidence goes to show that the 
drumming male serves as many hens as he can 
entice within his “circle of influence.” 
The chapter devoted to wild turkeys is only 
fairly encouraging, and we are disappointed to 
find that very little pure wild stock is on the 
market. The writer has had no experience in 
this line. 
The section on pheasants is necessarily brief, 
and fancy varieties are scarcely mentioned. I 
believe that experiments on fresh captured wild 
F 7 
