near their breeding haunts. Thus I have seen 
the pewee, the cuckoo, the robin and the wood 
thrush pursuing it with angry voice and gestures. 
If you wish the birds to breed and thrive in your 
orchards and groves, kill every red squirrel that 
infests the place.” 
PISCATORIAL LUCK OR ARCADIA 
T is not always fish the angler creels. In the 
hours freighted with sheer enjoyment, there 
are times when it is not all of fishing to fish. 
If one splits his day where he may angle, loaf and 
dream, then he has reached the pinnacle of a day 
afield on his favorite stream. 
Morning claims the fisherman’s attention when 
trout are rising to the fly, and the world of cities 
and tumult is forgotten. Imagine the mist wander- 
ing like smoke among the pine boughs, the sun 
struggling in a sea of shifting colors, the winds 
burdened with odors of balsam and a thousand 
blooms, the scents of wet earth, the bird songs. 
The solitary angler pauses to light his pipe, he 
waits to let all this sink deep, and then turns to 
his fishing again. The spirit can not rebel at such 
advances. 
Day is a time of skies that dim and fade, of 
odors furtive and fleeting, of song dripping like 
dew from the trees. The sun flings a pale glow 
over pasture, woodlot and far sweep of meadows. 
Hours pass silently, quickly, like shadows of birds 
in flight over placid waters. Tranced noon comes 
and goes. A low murmuring hangs above the still 
lengths of the wetlands, old fields and open hard- 
woods—the droning of insects hovering about bud 
and flower. Trees nod in leafy whisperings. Birds 
are silent, drowsy in the noonday heat or seeking 
the shady pools. Only the rhythmic ebb and flow 
of wind, the sound of muffled waters disturbs the 
indolent hours. Passing crows drop one lonely 
note. Down in a patch of dark cedar a blue jay 
riots in birdly fit and strong language—he dis- 
covers a stray fisherman laying back in a clump 
of bracken studying him with field glasses! 
In such idle moments I often wonder if it is the 
fishing I like or the wild life and primeval beauty 
along stream. Either of them still the feverish 
unrest of life. Somehow I like the primitive sen- 
sations of playing and landing a wily trout in 
rough water. If the gods smile, I like a good creel 
of fish and notes and camera negatives—all the 
memories of the day’s excursion. “I did not bring 
home the sky,” said the philosophic Emerson. And 
the fisherman can tote homeward only a tithe that 
has given relief to body and balm to soul. When 
the day brings forth ill luck in snaring captives, 
I am pleased with the time spent, for fishing does 
not mean fish. Fisherman’s luck, or Arcadia? As 
a man who loves the haunts of the brook trout give 
me, I fear, a little of both! 
TWENTY YEARS AGO 
WENTY years seems to be the given period 
of time adopted by those who like to make 
predictions as well as for statisticians who 
dote on calling attention to what has happened 
in the past. 
In a book published in 1848, Frank Forester, the 
Page 275 
foremost writer on field sports of the times, pre- 
dicted that in twenty years all game would have 
disappeared from the vicinity of New York City. 
He called special attention to the case of the deer. 
“The deer and the greater American hare, which 
turns white in winter, are lightwise already ex- 
tinct in many places, where both could be captured, 
within the last twenty years, in such numbers as 
to afford both sport and profit to their pursuers. 
“In New Jersey, and in New York, south of the 
forty-second degree of north latitude, with the ex- 
ception of a small number carefully preserved on 
the brush-plains of Long Island, the deer has 
ceased to exist. And it requires no prophetic eye 
to see the day when this pride of the North Ameri- 
can forests shall have ceased to have its habitation 
anywhere eastward of Pennsylvania; unless it be 
in the remote northern forests of Maine, in the 
mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, and 
in that small district of New York, lying between 
the head waters of the Hudson, Lake Champlain, 
the St. Lawrence, and the eastern extremity of 
Ontario.” 
Prominent writers on field sports have con- 
sistently predicted the extermination of different 
species of game “in twenty years.” Such predic- 
tions started seventy-five years ago, and these 
prophets are still sticking to the twenty-year 
period. 
HAND-RAISED QUAIL 
URING the year 1923, William B. Coleman, 
LD superintendent of the State Game Farm of 
Virginia, reared and shipped to sanctuaries 
in that state over 2,000 native Virginia bob-white 
quail. This is an accomplishment worthy of note, 
for many men versed in the raising of game in 
captivity have contended that our native bob-white 
could not be successfully reared in sufficient num- 
bers for stocking purposes. 
All breeders of game birds know that furnishing 
proper feed for the young birds constitutes their 
greatest difficulty. This feature is not only the 
most troublesome but perhaps the most expensive. 
Prior to this year Mr. Coleman has fed his quail 
custards and hard-boiled eggs. 
The spring of 1923 he tried the experiment of 
feeding clabber to the first brood of bob-white 
to hatch. Every bird in the brood except one, 
which was killed by accident, was reared to matur- 
ity. The little quail thrived so well on the clabber 
that Mr. Coleman continued to feed the birds on it 
through the summer, using no egg or custard. 
Mr. Coleman states that he has always fed some 
curd, both cooked and drip curd, but never before 
just the clabbered milk. The clabber is fed after 
all of the cream has been removed. The little quail 
have nothing except clabber for the first few days. 
When they are five days old German millet seeds 
are scattered on the ground and in their runs, and 
they soon learn to eat them. It is, of course, neces- 
sary to continue feeding clabber, which is given 
to the young birds on a small piece of board three 
times daily. After the quail are about a week old 
the clabber is kept before them at all times in 
small shallow plates. 
These experiments of Mr. Coleman‘s will be of 
great interest to the game-bird breeders of 
America. 
