406 
FOREST AND 
STREAM 
a v Thorn L. German 
Mallards at Feeding Time, Clove Valley Club. 
Young Mallards Raised at Clove Valley Club, New York, 1914 
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stocks of Reeves pheasants should be tried where 
forests of oak and beech grow at good elevations. 
Mr. E. H. Wilson, the well-known plant collector, 
described the species to me as a most wonder¬ 
ful game bird in its central China haunts. The 
present depleted aviary stock is almost useless. 
On page 8i Job mentions individual pheasants 
as laying 70 to 100 eggs. This is, of course, 
very exceptional, and should be stated as such. 
The writer does not share Mr. Job’s faith in 
the eight-foot fence for penning breeding stock 
of either quail or pheasants on the average wild¬ 
land game farm, though it may work well at 
times. A six-foot covered yard is much safer 
and not over expensive when built of cheap 
material. Our author evidently places little 
faith in the Hungarian, at least for the Eastern 
States. His experience is common apparently to 
all, and that is that the birds make a fair show¬ 
ing the first year and are usually gone by the 
third year. There are more encouraging reports 
from the grain States. 
Another chapter is devoted to vermin and direc¬ 
tions for trapping it. A trapper is born and 
not made, and trapping is a large subject, but 
Mr. Job has condensed a great deal of informa¬ 
tion into a few pages. Some sketches of 
traps and trap sets would have been use¬ 
ful to the uninitiated. With the first para¬ 
graph of this chapter we can heartily agree, 
and all so-called bird lovers and “super”- 
protectionists would do well to ponder on 
it. The popular fallacy here exposed re¬ 
lates to the so-called “refuge.” We know 
that the ordinary wild-land refuge is no 
refuge at all, and that posting does little 
or no good unless it is followed up by de¬ 
struction of vermin, grain and shrub plant¬ 
ing, and so on. 
Chapter IX is devoted to wild ducks. 
The whole tone of the chapter is rather too 
optimistic, if I may be allowed to criticize 
once again. Optimistic articles on raising 
wild ducks have done a great deal of harm 
in this country, and have had no effect 
other than to discourage enthusiasts, and 
line the pockets of the game dealers. Job’s 
chapter is correct in so far as it applies to 
mallards, and perhaps pintails, but the dif¬ 
ficulties of getting most species to really 
lay well in small enclosures are perhaps 
not brought out. The English experiments 
are mostly on large estates, and could sel¬ 
dom be duplicated*here. Oftentimes there the 
ducks do not know they are confined even 
though pinioned. The methods of the Dutch 
should, I think, be more fully investigated, 
for success with such species as snow and 
blue geese by men like Blaauw of Hilversun, 
show that there is much to learn. Briefly, 
then, although ducks do at times lay in a 
Aty ta kjard (pa e 116) they c rtainly would 
usually not do so. Mr. Job, like myself and 
others, hears of the startling successes more 
often than he does the moderate failures, hence 
the general impression is not quite correct. 
There are a number of points in this chap¬ 
ter which I should like to take up, but space 
is lacking. Facing page 133 is a picture (lower 
one) marked canvasbacks. These are certainly 
not canvasbacks, and I should guess them to be 
black ducks. 
With wood-duck nesting boxes (page 133) I 
h«.ve tried posts both on shore and in the water, 
but have seen no difference. I have found tile 
pipes leading into underground boxes good some 
seasons, while other seasons they were never no¬ 
ticed at all. The psychology of the wood-duck 
follows no laws that I can see; not in confine¬ 
ment, anyway. For the best essay on breeding 
wood-ducks see an article by Heinroth of the 
Berlin Zoo (Jour, fur Ornith. 58 page 100), 
which Mr. Job has not mentioned. 
Page 138 describes the method of the late 
Wilton Lockwood. Mr. Lockwood did use horse¬ 
shoe crabs, for I saw him feeding these animals 
to young red-heads many years ago. I don’t 
know whether he or Mr. Cox evolved the idea. 
In another place Mr. Job quotes Mr. Mcllhenny 
of Avery Isle, La., as having bred the blue¬ 
winged teal in large numbers. This is strictly 
so, for Mr. Mcllhenny induces large numbers of 
teal to stay with him in Louisiana, and he gathers 
wild laid eggs, but he wrote me this spring that 
the pinioned blue-winged teal was one of the worst 
species to lay in confinement, and he has no luck 
with them in enclosures. I might add that teal, 
blue wings more so than others apparently, grow 
long, secondary wing feathers after being pinioned 
well up under the bastard wing. This is never 
mentioned in the books, and has cost me many 
disappointments, for to really keep a teal per¬ 
manently inside a low fence he must be bone- 
cut inside the joint or elbow of the wing, an 
operation disfiguring and rather dangerous. 
Mr. Job quotes me as allowing wood- 
ducks tc rear their own young. I have 
never done this, but have sometimes al¬ 
lowed them to brood for a week or two 
and then transferred the eggs to mallards 
for hatching and rearing. This worked 
well, only the young were very wild. Hein¬ 
roth could never rear them with mallards, 
and says the young would never respond to 
the mallard-duck’s call. All workers have 
different experiences. For several years I 
have gathered eggs daily after the ducks 
once started to lay, not even leaving one in 
the nest. In the small quarters which I 
provide, several females often lay in one 
nest, and eggs, if allowed to accumulate, 
are crowded out or fought over. 
Cranes are bred much more frequently 
in England than Mr. Job apparently real¬ 
izes, but of course only in an “aviculturaF 
sense. Many species have nested, and 
some reared their young on the Duke of 
Bedford’s estate. The demoiselle crane is 
easily reared, and a mated pair nearly al¬ 
ways nests, though the eggs are not always 
fertile. The young, as Job says, must 
have constant and abundant insect forage. 
Crows Shot by Farmer in Connecticut, and 
Hung Up by His House. 
