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FOREST AND STREAM. 

[AuG. 24, 1907. 

for quail on toast has made such inroads upon 
the supply that the gradually diminishing area 
of uncultivated land no longer yields sufficient to 
satisfy the sportsman, the bon vivant and the 
farmer. Interstate commerce in quail, formerly 
enormous, is now rapidly diminishing under laws 
restricting or even prohibiting the export of 
quail, either alive or dead, over the State lines. 
Such laws are now in the various statute books 
of every State except one, and are becoming in- 
creasingly well enforced in most of the other 
States, so that each year it becomes more diffi- 
cult to secure birds for stocking covers, or even 
for propagation in less fortunate States. Under 
these conditions systematic propagation and in- 
telligent persistence in overcoming difficulties 1s 
essential in Massachusetts if the quail supply 
is to be maintained. That an abundant supply 
is desirable from the sportsman’s point of view 
has been proven by the alert interest and the not 
entirely selfish efforts of the sportsmen in spend- 
ing large sums of money to purchase, transport 
and feed southern quail in the State, and the 
care not to destroy entire coveys, or even to 
abstain entirely from shooting at times of scarcity 
of these birds. ; 
Our attempts to get a satisfactory stock of 
breeding birds emphasized most strongly the 
fact that for maintaining our game birds re- 
liance can no longer be placed upon stock se- 
cured from other States, from the fact that 
transportation from a distance is expensive and 
destructive, even to such a degree as to lead 
to a reasonable doubt as to the wisdom of such 
undertakings. 
It frequently happens, too, that people who 
attempt to purchase western quail secure quail 
from Texas instead of from Kansas. } 
The general conditions of the quail situation 
are shown in the following statement: 
The depletion of quail covers by recent severe winters 
has resulted in vigorous efforts in various parts of the 
country to secure birds from sections where they still 
abound. The quail of Mexico were drawn on and 148 
Bob Whites and 2,400 Mexican quail were imported and 
shipped to northern points. These proved unsatisfactory, 
and native quail were sought to meet the demand. Ow- 
ing, however, to the strict comprehensive non-export laws 
of most of the States, the supply of available birds has 
been far below the demand, and consequently the stock 
of quail in those States from which the birds could be 
legally secured has been recklessly diminished; in other 
States, violations or evasions of the law have occurred. 
In Alabama a few shippers furnished Eastern and North- 
ern States with enormous numbers of quail, which it is 
by means certain will be able to withstand the climate 
of the regions where the birds were liberated. A similar 
attempt to meet the demand was made in Texas, where, 
however, the State law was violated, and the quail trap- 
pers were arrested and confined in jail. 
Despite these strenuous efforts to supply the demand, 
and despite all attempts to meet the deficiency by proper 
and moderate transfer of domestic birds, the demand con- 
tinues greatly in excess of the supply. If such depletion 
recurs, better methods will have to be devised to restore 
the normal abundance. To stock one part of the country 
at the expense of another, without careful safeguards to 
prevent depletion of the covers drawn upon, is mistaken 
policy. The supply should be taken from a number of 
points, to avoid too great a drain on limited localities, 
and all trapping and export of birds for propagation 
should be under State control, and not left to unchecked 
individual enterprise. 
Before the demand for 
must be devised whereby the ' : 
profitably on a commercial scale. It is estimated that 
during the past year Alabama furnished about 100,000 
quail, and the West_and Southwest 50,000 more. Prices 
ranged from $4 to $5 per dozen for Southern birds, and 
$10 a zen for those from the Southwest. Thus, all 
told, 000 to $100,000 worth of quail were required for 
a partial supply of the existing demand. Severe winters 
are likely to recur, and even under favorable climatic 
conditions, excessive hunting and the rapidly increasing 
number of game preserves will create a constant de- 
mand for birds for propagation. Already quail have 
been raised in confinement in an experimental way, but 
with varying success. All the difficulties have not yet 
been overcome, but they are not insuperable, and it is 
to be hoped that State or private enterprise may suc- 
cessfully meet them at no distant date.* 

satisfied, means 
quail can be 
birds can be propagated 



To secure satisfactory results, economic 
methods must be devised for hatching and rais- 
ing quail in large numbers and with a less per- 
centage of loss than occurs under natural con- 
ditions. This has been successfully done in the 
case of many other species of birds, which in 
time have developed under domestication won- 
derful improvement both in size and in fecundity. 
The experience of ourselves and others demon- 
strates, however, that there is still much to be 
*From p. 13, report of the acting Chief of the Bureau 
of Biological Survey for 1906, by Henry W. Henshaw, 
acting Chief. From annual reports Department of Agri- 
culture. 

learned before completely successful propagating 
methods can be devised for use by amateurs. 
The most conspicuous difficulties thus far experi- 
enced are connected with securing satisfactory 
breeding stock, e. g., birds strong, tame and 
free from disease; methods of securing a large 
supply of eggs; hatching and brooding the young 
birds in such a manner as to avoid exposing 
them to any one of several infectious diseases, 
to which both the quail and the ruffed grouse 
appear to be particularly susceptible. 
Our most satisfactory breeding stock was 
birds from North Carolina, obtained through the 
courtesy of officials of the Massachusetts Fish 
and Game Protective Association. These were 
supplemented by other birds from Kansas and 
Alabama. Practically all of these latter birds 
died from a disease closely resembling chicken 
cholera. 
These quail were probably trapped by negroes, 
who kept them in coops or other quarters used 
by hens, turkeys or pigeons. They were then 
brought to the country store, where in similar 
but more crowded quarters they awaited the day 
of shipment. As we have proved this year, quail and 
ruffed grouse should never under any considera- 
tion be placed in coops or boxes in which pheas- 
ants or domesticated poultry have been confined, 
or permitted to run over ground where such 
birds have had access, or even to drink water 
flowing from such ground, on account of the 
likelihood of becoming infected with the bacilli 
of chicken cholera or the animal parasites 
Ameba meleagridis, Coccidium avii, which, while 
not always fatal to pheasants and domesticated 
fowl, appear to be singularly fatal to quail and 
ruffed grouse. 
In addition to the birds probably infected be- 
fore arrival, and which died from chicken 
cholera, we undoubtedly lost many birds as a 
result of placing them in pheasant pens, where 
they became infected with the internal parasite, 
Coccidium avii. 
The breeding pens which were devised proved 
to be especially satisfactory. 
Circumstances did not permit us to get the 
birds into the pens early enough to insure early 
mating, and egg laying was probably somewhat 
deferred on that account. The first eggs were 
found June to. 
We intended to take some of the eggs from 
the nests for hatching under bantams, and leave 
other clutches to be hatched by the quails, but 
sO many nests were either abandoned or the 
eggs eaten by field mice that it seemed best to 
take away all of the eggs. In several instances, 
however, nests were so securely hidden that the 
quail hatched the young within the pens. Just 
how many were thus hatched could not be deter- 
mined, on account of the heavy undergrowth. 
The total number put in was 47; of these, 19 
were known to have died; others doubtless died, 
but were not found. The number of birds which 
were in the pen when the falling leaves again 
permitted a view of the interior was 21. Many 
eggs failed to hatch on account of lying in the 
nest too long, from lack of systematic collection 
and the substitution of satisfactory nest eggs. 
Many eggs were broken by the hen by too ener- 
getic brooding. We have arranged to substitute 
the incubator. The eggs were collected every 
day, but were kept until there were enough to 
set two or more bantams on the same day, for 
the purpose of securing a considerable number 
of young at once for convenience in feeding. 
The young proved in no degree refractory or 
difficult to handle or feed. The food was so 
varied that an abundance was readily obtained. 
The first lot of young were brooded by a ban- 
tam, but with the appearance of the same disease 
which had mown down the young ruffed grouse 
they were taken from the hen and placed in a 
Model brooder, and the disease was checked. 
All subsequent hatches were reared in brooders 
having the runs upon uninfected ground. No 
subsequent attack of the ameebic disease ap- 
peared, and the quail grew rapidly. At the pres- 
ent stage of the work it is not deemed expedient 
to actually weigh the birds, but from appear- 
ances the young reared here with abundant and 
varied food appear decidedly larger than the 
parent birds. For the coming year we have con- 
structed another inclosure, containing fifteen 
breeding pens, and hope to secure an increased 
stock of breeding birds, in addition to the twenty- 
four young reared this year in confinement, and 
the thirteen survivors of the original stock of 
wild birds. 
An extract from the report of Supt. Arthur 
Merrill, of the Sutton hatchery, follows, and fur- 
nishes further details, particularly as to methods 
of feeding: 
The breeding quail received in February and March 
were put into the old pheasant pens, in which an abund- 
ance of brush was placed to give them hiding places. 
Two serious disadvantages were quickly discovered, 
which doubtless affected the health of the stock: the 
dusting places goon became wet, and could not be sup- 
plied with dry dust; and the birds kept so close under 
the brush that their hiding places became very foul. 
Both conditions were rendered worse by the heavy fall 
of snow in March. 
Two lots of North Carolina quail, though considerably 
reduced, supplied the greater part of the brood stock— 
strong birds that bred well. One lot of Alabama quail 
was practically all lost, the circumstances indicating 
disease. A small lot of supposed Alabama quail did 
better, and supplied some breeders for the pens. 
A lot of Kansas quail received late in the spring, and 
kept in the old pheasant pen, did very well in the be- 
ginning; but many were lost during the summer, at a 
time when the others in the new breeding pens were 
in the best of condition. This was evidence that the old 
pheasant pens were the source of disease. 
As soon as possible after the arrival of the quail, ten 
new pens were built, covering 6,500 square feet of rough 
ground, having an abundant growth of brush and ttra- 
versed by a water course, which supplied water to most 
of the pens. The pens were built across a gully running 
nearly east and west—as experience proved, a most 
advantageous feature of the location. During the hot 
weather of summer the birds lived in the shady side, 
crossing over to the sunny side in winter, living there 
and in the dust shelter at the top of the bank. When 
disturbed by the work about the pens, the long flight 
which the length of the pens permitted them to take was 
rendered harmless, as in flying they crossed the gully and 
alighted on the steep bank. Varying numbers were put 
in the breeding pens—a pair, a male and two females and 
two males and three females. No quarreling was seen, 
and the birds mated without regard to the number in the 
pens, while, so far as could be told, there was no dif- 
ference in the fertility of the eggs. 
Early in May the first quail nest was found, but it 
was nearly a month later before the first eggs were laid. 
Through June, eggs were collected slowly, the majority 
of the birds not beginning nesting until July; but they 
laid well through that month and the first part of August, 
with a few scattering eggs until September. 
The number of nests found considerably exceeded the 
number of females in the pens, many birds abandoning 
their nests and making new ones, especially early in the 
season. Later they showed less alarm when the pens 
were searched, and quickly returned to their nests when 
disturbed. At first they showed little inclination to at- 
tempt incubation, but later they did quite generally, 
hatching out six broods and attempting many others. 
The nests were so generally distributed in the pens— 
not one but what contained as many or more nests than 
females in it—that it appeared reasonably certain that no 
bird failed to nest. In one pen where no eggs were se- 
cured the hen made two nests, and circumstances indi- 
cated probability of robbery by mice, if eggs were laid. 
Eggs were removed from some nests as soon as laid, 
in hopes that the birds would continue to lay. In two 
instances this was successful, from one nest 22 eggs being 
taken, and from the other 29; but in most cases the 
nests were abandoned. ; 
The nests showed the widest possible range in manner 
of building and concealment, varying from slight depres- 
sicns scratched in sheltered places, to elaborately arched 
structures, some so well concealed that they were not 
found, the presence of young proving that the birds had 
nested. The number of eggs scattered about the pens 
was very small at the beginning of the nesting season, 
and later practically none were found out of the nests. 
The eggs were placed under bantam hens and hatched 
with varying success, at first very good, the first hen 
hatching every egg. Later, hatching was unsuccessful, 
due to the breakage of eggs by the hens, which was 
much more frequent than in the case of pheasant or 
grouse eggs, even when the latter were placed under 
large hens, This was due to the very fragile shell of the 
eggs, and more to the eagerness of the hen to cover them 
than to carelessness or roughness. The main cause of 
the failure to hatch resulted from leaving the eggs in the 
nest, with the intention of letting the quail hatch their 
own. In most instances they failed to do this where the 
nests were visited, though there was only one case where 
it was certain that the nest was abandoned after incuba- 
tion commenced. Several nests were found, the eggs ap- 
parently having been laid a long time before they were 
discovered. 
To secure fresher eggs and get a better hatch, fre- 
quent and more thorough searches will be necessary, 
with the removal of all of the eggs as soon as laid, re- 
placing them with artificial eggs to keep if possible the 
birds laying in the same nests. 
A number of chicks were killed by the hens; but in 
the future, if it is necessary to use hens for hatching, 
this trouble might be avoided by doing the hatching in 
a room that could be darkened when the chicks were 
coming out. 
Two lots of chicks were kept under hens for a few 
days, and a loss of twenty resulted; but of the whole 
lot, numbering seventy-two, placed in the brooders, only 
ten were lost from any cause during the first three weeks, 
nearly all of these ten dying the first days from apparent 
weakness. No loss could be attributed to the food. and 
none from the disease that destroyed so many grouse 
and pheasants under the age of three weeks. 
The first three lots, numbering forty, suffered a loss of 
(Continued on page 318.) 



