FOREST AND STREAM. 
73i 
Nov. 7, 1908.J 
Duck Food—Sdmbur Deer. 
St. Vincent Island, Fla., Oct. 31 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: Replying to your recent in¬ 
quiry as to my success in growing wild rice 
(Zizania aquatica ) in the fresh-water lakes of 
this island, I have to report, that although I 
sowed over one thousand pounds of the finest 
quality of the seed, the experiment has proven 
a complete failure. Although in a few localities 
the seed germinated and grew to a limited ex¬ 
tent, as soon as the plants got a little above 
the surface of the water they died, none of them 
reaching maturity. 
I am now introducing wild celery (Vallisneria 
spiralis), both by planting the roots and scatter- 
what success is to be achieved in growing these 
different grasses here, but I am quite confident 
they will do well. 
Last spring I scattered a small quantity of 
Potamogeton seed, obtained from Minnesota, in 
one of my fresh-water ponds, but I see no in¬ 
dications that it has grown. Probably seed 
from some of the varieties of this plant in¬ 
digenous to the region would be more likely to 
grow. 
It may interest some of your readers to know 
that I have procured four fine specimens of 
Indian sambur deer—a buck and three does— 
which arrived about ten days ago, and have 
been yarded in a four-acre woods paddock 
Recent Publications. 
d he China or Denny Pheasant in Oregon, by 
William T. Shaw, assistant professor of 
zoology and curator of the Washington 
State College Museum. Cloth, 52 pages, 
illustrated from photographs by the author. 
Philadelphia and London, the J. B. Lippin- 
cott Company. 
While the late Judge O. N. Denny was Consul- 
General of the United States Government at 
Shanghai, he observed that the Chinese carefully 
preserved their native pheasants and encouraged 
them to roam at will over their farms and gar¬ 
dens, knowing the birds did more good than 
harm. When the pheasants increased too much 
n 
1. 
1 
SOOTY GROUSE-PHEASANT HYBRID. 
The extraordinary way in which the pheasants hybridize with other fowls 
volume on the China pheasant in Oregon. These hybrids are beautiful birds 
in an interesting though inconstant way the markings of both species. Two’ 
captivity, grew to a magnificent size, but showed no inclination to breed. 
is exemplified by the above cut, taken from Prof. Shaw's 
but are said to be rather inert and spiritless. They show 
of these hybrids, captured while st 11 chicks and reared in 
g the ripe seed pods, and hope to succeed 
! ffh it in both the fresh- and brackish-water 
)nds. I have also put out several varieties of 
e Polygonum, or smart-weed family of plants 
id some of them are growing nicely and will, 
have no doubt, furnish acceptable food for the 
rious species of ducks which frequent this 
eserve. I have also scattered several bushels 
the seed of a grass, which at Currituck, N. 
, is highly esteemed as a duck food and which 
there known as fox-tail grass. It bears quite 
good-sized black seed on which all varieties 
! ducks feed. I have also planted consider- 
le of another seed which grows at Curri- 
I ~k Sound quite freely and which is there 
own as red-head grass seed and which is 
io much sought for by various species of 
terfowl. It is too early as yet to determine 
where they already seem quite at home. It is 
my intention to turn them loose on this 12,000- 
acre range as soon as they become a little ac¬ 
customed to their new environment, wild food, 
etc. As the range is large and surrounded by 
rather wide navigable channels, I think they 
will not be likely to swim to the mainland. 
I believe this is the first effort to introduce 
and acclimatize these great deer in the South. 
Dr. Hornaday, Director of the New York 
Zoological Society’s great aggregation of ani¬ 
mals at the Bronx Park, is of the opinion that 
they will do well and breed rapidly in this 
climate. If so, they should prove great veni¬ 
son producers, as they are immense in size— 
quite as large, I should say, as our Adirondack 
or Maine white-tailed, or Virginia deer. 
R. V. Pierce. 
the Chinese netted them and sold them alive in 
the markets. Generally the birds were so poor 
that they were not fit to eat, and it was while 
the judge was fattening some of them in an 
inclosure at the consulate that the idea came to 
him to attempt stocking his ranch in the Willa¬ 
mette Valley in Oregon with Chinese ring-neck 
pheasants. The first shipment, of seventy birds, 
was a failure because the pheasants were put in 
small coops at Olympia, and none survived. A 
year later thirty pheasants were shipped, and 
these were turned out on the Denny ranch. That 
was in the early 8o’s. A law was passed pro¬ 
tecting the birds, and in time they have increased 
so much that the entire Pacific Northwest has 
been stocked with them and they have crossed 
with native grouse. 
Prof. Shaw gives a history of the China pheas- 
