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[AUG.-17; 1007. 

256 
Massachusetts Association. Notes. 
Boston, Aug. 10—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your correspondent was much pleased to receive 
to-day from Dr, W. C. Woodward, the 
secretary of the Middleboro Sports- 
The doctor, like his father before 
for many years a constant reader 
of Forest AND STREAM and therefore it goes 
‘without saying he is one of the best posted 
sportsmen we have in the Old Bay State. He 
was one of the first to stir up the sportsmen 
and farmers of his town to supply the quail in 
that neighborhood with food during the severe 
winter of 1903-4; and the interest thereby 
awakened resulted in the formation of the sports- 
man’s club. He returned a few weeks ago from 
a call 
efficient 
man’s Club. 
his, has been 
a salmon fishing trip to Newfoundland, this 
being his eighth season in that resort. He re- 
ports taking fourteen salmon on this trip, the 
4, pounds, and says the fish- 
good as it was when he 
made his first trip in 1899. He is to start again 
on Wednesday for the same waters, hoping to 
find conditions more favorable than on his former 
largest weighing 17} 
ing is not nearly as 
trip. The region he visits is on the west coast 
of the island. He attributes the decline in the 
fishing to the improved means of conveyance 
and greater activity of the market fishermen. 
He and a few other Americans have been sound- 
ing a note of warning to the natives “not to 
kill the goose that lays the golden egg,” and 
it is to be hoped they will take the alarm before 
it is too late. 
Mr. DS 
that. the new club formed’ in 
weeks ago is growing steadily 
meeting, Aug. 5, the subject of taking “club 
membership” in the State association was dis- 
cussed and favorable action was taken “by a 
large vote.’ The club has nearly one hundred 
dollars in its treasury. Calls for cloth posters 
of the fish and game laws, both in English and 
of South Lawrence, writes 
Lawrence a few 
atid thateat. a 
Taylor, 
Italian are unprecedented, and many interesting 
letters have been received the last few days. 
Mr. N. J. Hardy, of Arlington, a former presi- 
dent of the Middlesex Club, writes that in his 
vicinity pheasants and ruffed grouse are quite 
plenty, quail not being plenty. Trout fishing, 
he says, has been fair and he has observed many 
small trout in the nearby brooks. He reports 
that the secretary of the club, Dr. J. W. Bailey, 
and Mr. Everett Chapman, have rendered good 
service as unpaid deputies. From his observa- 
tion the results of stocking with fingerling: trout 
have proved much more satisfactory than those 
following the planting of fry. 
Herr Sigmund Klaiber, secretary of the “Tur- 
ners Falls Schiitzen Verein,’ to whom cloth 
posters and booklets containing the fish and 
game laws were sent last year from this office, 
asks for a repetition of the favor this year as 
“they ahev done some good.” Mr. Klaiber reports 
fifty members in his organization and not only 
they, but other persons like to have the books. 
To the Macaschugelts Fish and Game Protective 
Association is due the credit of compiling and 
distributing the first game law manuals that were 
ever printed in Massachusetts, and so far as I 
am informed the first in this country. After a 
while the commissioners followed suit and now 
an edition of 10,000—the number printed by the 
State last year—is- inadequate. 
Mr, Jason Spoffard, of Amesbury, represented 
his town in the sportsmen’s convention of 18¢9 
and still keeps up his interest in the cause of 
fish eee game protection. Mr. Spoffard reports 
that “the trout fishermen have had better luck 
this season than for several years.” He thinks, 
while quail are scarce, partridges are more 
numerous than for several years. Two unpaid 
wardens that were appointed by the selectmen 
do not seem to be very efficient, as dogs are con- 
stantly running deer and they do nothing to stop 
it. Mr. H. F. Chase, who owns a cottage on Tewks- 
bury Pond, informs him that every night dogs 
are hounding deer about the pond, and if a 
deputy will come down there he can find the 
dogs doing this “any night he cares to come” 
He says Mr. Chase is sportsman of the right 
type and would like very much to have the 
owners of the dogs looked after so that the deer 
would not be “worried” in this way. 
An exceedingly interesting letter, 
asking for 


game law books, etc., is from Mr. Norman Bar- 
stow who is the treasurer of the New Bedford 
Kennel Club. I had heard that Mr. Barstow 
was active last winter in having the season for 
shooting upland birds in Bristol county made 
the same as in the other counties of the State. 
Writing of this, he says he got out a “big peti- 
tion” for this change, also one for the appoint- 
ment of a paid deputy, and “he has just been 
appointed and has got to work.” ‘He is a good 
clean young fellow (Samuel J. Lowe). 
Mr. Barstow speaks also of three lots of 
quail that he liberated which were fed during 
the winter and have bred. He found two nests, 
one with sixteen, the other with thirteen eggs, 
rery one of which was hatched, He thinks 
ae quite numerous, and sees no reason why 
grouse hunting should not be good. Early trout 
fishing -was good, but later streams were too 
low. “Foxes are very plenty around here this 
year,’ but though he is a foxhunter, he says, 
“T believe they kill a lot of game,” and in his 
hunting he has “observed and made quite a 
study of them.” If Mr. Barstow could infuse 
the same spirit he manifests into the other mem- 
bers of his club it would be a great thing for the 
fish and game interests of Bristol county, and 
in fact, of the whole State. 
From Green Harbor (in Marshfield) come re- 
ports that the summer visitors have been having 
good sport the past week, bringing in many fine 
catches of cod and other salt water fishes. The 
same is also true of Chatham. 
Mr. C, A. Lamson and his guest from Beverly, 
visitors at Stage Harbor, when out with the 
veteran skipper, Mr. Fred Eldredge, ran across 
a large swordfish, which after a long struggle 
was captured during the ebb tide on what is 
called the Common Flat in shoal water. Most 
of the fish was distributed among the neigh- 
boring cottagers: and the balance was sold to a 
local dealer. Those familiar with Chatham will 
remember the “old windmill,” the only one left 
of the three original ones and which was built 
in 1793. Both the natives and summer people 
are now disturbed by a current report that it 
is likely to be sold and moved away. The mill 
is visited by hundreds of people every summer 
and it has been suggested that it be made a 
headquarters for curios and relics and thus ren- 
dered additionally attractive, to visitors. 
H. H. KiIMpatt. 

Quail in Missouri. 
Mo., Aug. 3.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: If one questions the native of the 
hill lands of Southeast Missouri, as to which 
kind of game is most plentiful, the answer will 
be quail, for here they are as numerous as 
any place’ in the United States. There is not 
a field of the most modest pretensions to 
acreage that cannot boast a few coveys. Even 
the wild hill lands of the wilderness, robbed of 
their stately pines, but grown up in oak, hickory, 
etc., boast quantities; for in those open tim- 
bered hills one can hunt a whole day without 
seeing a farm, yet secure an abundance of 
quail shooting. 
Here their food supply is never exhausted by 
the effects of intense cultivation, which has 
robbed other States of their former supply of 
quail. Their principal food consists of sumac, 
poor Joe, beggar lice, and not the least, the 
seeds of the wild grape peculiar to that section 
that loves to run on the ground in preference 
to climbing trees; also the waste of the acorn 
that his lordship, the razor-back hog, leaves 
scattered here and there. Drouth or wet sea- 
sons may prevail, but the birds’ food supply is 
always far beyond its needs. Besides, protec- 
tion afforded by the thickets make increase an 
assured factor each year, and the sight of man 
seldom presents itself, so no wonder the gamiest 
of all birds thrives. But greater in number 
than even in this stretch of wilderness are they 
in the farm lands. Where modern farming 
methods are looked on with disdain, the land, 
as a rule, is poor, and when the corn has been 
plowed a few times, it is layed by and the rains 
of summer tempt from the earth a covering of 
crab grass, a food the birds enjoy. Where oats 
are cut, the same conditions prevail, and where 
DoNIPHAN, 


this grass fails to come, ragweed takes its place 
and those of the southern lands know that 
quail are always found in a field of ragweed. 
Where ‘land has been abandoned a few years, 
it is covered with the waving eee grass of 
the South, and underneath each tussock is a 
carpet of Japanese clover (Lespedeza), another 
favorite food. So even in the most bitter of 
winters quail enjoy plenty of food which helps 
them weather the cold periods, and the only 
time fatalities of winter occur in their midst is 
when sleet stays on the ground a week or more. 
Then the rigor of the inclement period leaves 
a trail of dead birds which it takes a year or 
more to replace. 
Except near town I have never seen a hunter. 
It is a little out of the way for him, and like 
most places, acquaintance is necessary among 
the farmers to cover the territory. This is not 
difficult to obtain. Only two things are neces- 
sary—-that you are not a market hunter, and 
that you will kill all the rabbits you see, for 
these pests cause serious damage each winter 
to the young orchards and are very difficult to 
get rid of on account of the vast tracts of 
timber adioining. 
Probably this year. produced the greatest 
number of quail I have seen in ten years. 
Spring came rainy and wet and to every one 
it appeared as though the first hatching would 
be met with a wet siege of weather and great 
numbers lost, but the last of May came in with 
dry weather, and it has been dry ever since, 
though the water holes have been replenished 
with light showers to keep the little fellows 
from traveling too far in their attempts to 
quench thirst. 
It has always been of great pleasure each 
year to watch these birds mate, make their 
1ests, hatch, etc., bringing another covey into 
the world. The female has to share her labors 
with her consort, who is the ideal of what male 
birds should be, though among other varieties 
of birds the male has little disposition to share 
the work incidental to raising the young. 
A hen quail pre-empted a spot in my kennel 
yard for her nest. A dense growth of buck 
brush fringed the eastern fence, and in this 
thicket the dainty little hen began to lay her 
eggs until they had reached the ‘goodly number 
of twenty-two. I watched her work with pleas- 
ure, especially so’ when she had reached that 
number, to find that the male bird had taken 
her place on the nest. Up to the time the eggs 
were hatched I never saw the hen return, she 
may have met with an accident, or else stayed 
on the nest at night. At last all the eggs were 
hatched but two, which, upon examination, I 
found were spoiled. 
I see the male occasionally with the 
youngsters in a cantaloupe patch adjacent to 
the hatchery. They resemble enormous bumble 
bees more than anything else. The old cock is 
proud of his youngsters and scratches for some 
dainty bite of insect life with all the assiduity of 
a hen. 
There were ten or twelve nests in our oat 
patch which were hatched a week before the 
cutting, but only on occasional moments, and 
that at midday, would I find the male bird on 
the nest, though he could be seen in the vicinity 
at almost any time oi da 
Where grain crops or hay crops are not 
available, quail seem to delight in building their 
nests in fields of volunteer Japanese clover. 
This makes a splendid place, hiding her from 
all her enemies, though in no place are they 
entirely secure from their worst enemy, the 
black snake. Locu LApDpIE. 
A Pheasant Estimate. 
It is estimated, by one of the English papers, 
that upward of 8,000 pheasants have been hatched 
this season on one estate alone, that of the Earl 
of Craven's Coombe Abbey estate in Warwick- 
shire. 
Tue Forest AND STREAM may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 

