

Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. 
Grorce Birp GRINNELL, President, 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Cuarves B. Reynovps, Secretary. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Louis DEAN Speir, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 


Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, 

THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest AND Stream, Aug. 14, 1878. 

HAND-REARING GAME BIRDS.—11. 
In England the imported Chinese pheasants has 
been hand-reared for generations. The young 
birds, after they have passed the chief dangers 
of their youth, are turned out to forage for 
themselves in the covers, and a little later, after 
they have learned the use of their wings and 
have become wild, they are driven to the gun 
by beaters. On a few large estates in America 
pheasants are also hand-reared for shooting pur- 
poses, but this has been done on so small a 
scale and in so few localities that the pheasants 
turned out and become wild have scattered over 
a great extent of territory and are nowhere 
abundant. Nevertheless, in New York, New 
Jersey, and no doubt in other places, there are 
localities where one can be sure of seeing pheas- 
ants almost any day. 
It is only a very few years since English land- 
owners—driven to it by a succession of bad sea- 
sons which destroyed the young birds—began 
efforts to rear partridges in confinement, and 
after many trials, they have succeeded in 
doing this far better than would have been ex- 
pected. The mother is allowed to start her 
sitting, but for the most part the eggs are 
taken from her and hatched either in incubators 
or under very small hens. All the eggs are 
finally hatched in an incubator and then the 
young chicks are returned to the mother, which 
may be the partridge mother or a foster mother. 
Naturally the problem of feeding and caring 
for these tender young birds presents many 
difficulties, but they are difficulties which 
patience will overcome; and the same patience 
which has overcome the difficulties of rearing 
the young pheasant and the young partridge can 
unquestionably overcome all the difficulties 
which will present themselves in the rearing 
of our grouse or our quail. 
In the case of the Illinois 
has been reported that the game commissioner 
having a large number of laying birds, purposed 
to distribute among farmers this summer, if all 
things went well, many hatchings of pheasants’ 
eggs to be raised by the farmer, and cared for 
by him. Should this method prove successful, 
the question of pheasants for the State of Illi- 
nois would seem to be settled unless some 
disease or a peculiar meteorological con- 
dition should arise which might destroy the 
birds. 
The pheasant, an exotic bird, having done so 
well in England and also at certain points on 
the west coast of America, has become very 
popular here and is entirely likely to become 
commission it 
With 
bers of our native birds, has 
firmly established. the lessening in num- 
arisen also a craze 
for foreign species, many persons apparently rea- 
soning that because partridges are abundant in 
England or black on certain 
Scottish therefore prolific or 
easily reared and could withstand the dangers 
to which birds on this side of the water are ex- 
posed. A similar curious desire for experimen- 
tation exists among some big-game hunters, who 
have advocated the importation of red deer to 
be turned out in American covers, and even of 
chamois to be introduced in the Rocky Moun- 
tains. 
It is evident that given protection from their 
native birds stand a far 
chance of surviving here than could any imported 
game does well 
moors, they are 
enemies, our better 
species. Give them plenty of food, protect them 
from the dangers of the winter and from the 
all pervading shotgun, and Bob White or the 
ruffed grouse or the prairie chicken are perfectly 
able to hold their own so long as suitable covers 
exist for them to retreat to in time of danger. 
We shall do much better to foster what we have 
than to go to foreign shores and try experi- 
ments with exotic species. This, of course, is 
not saying that there may not be foreign game 
birds which could profitably be introduced into 
this country. This is likely true, and the 
State of Illinois is now in possession of funds 
sufficient to make most useful experiments in 
this line, which are now being carried on. We 
are disposed to think, however, that the same 
amount of money that has been expended in 
breeding pheasants, put into breeding prairie 
chickens, would have yielded to the State a far 
greater return. 
= 
very 

THE NECESSITY FOR RESTOCKING. 
THE rains of the past ten days have brought 
relief to some sections the drouth had 
affected farmer and angler alike. On all 
the hope is expressed that the situation regard- 
ing the trout streams is not so grave as it was 
believed to be, and that plenty of the fish sur- 
vived. Trout often live through drouths of this 
sort, and perhaps seek the largest pools when the 
rifts warn them of the danger of being caught 
in shallow waters that will prove fatal to them 
in a long, dry season. However, the loss in cer- 
tain waters is known to be unusually heavy, but 
it would seem that the brown and rainbow trout 
have suffered less than the brook trout. These 
introduced fish can withstand the effects of low 
and warm water much better than the native 
species, and we would not be surprised if some 
of our most famous brook trout streams show 
where 
sides 
an increase next spring of rainbow and brown 
trout. 
In other parts of the country rains are still 
hoped for, and there the situation is deplorable. 
In New England many of the trout streams prac- 
tically dried up, and the loss in brook trout will 
SEPT EMBER=21, 1907. 
; VOL. LXIX.—No. 12. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
be very heavy; for, unless relief comes quickly, 
the 
may succumb, the hatcheries will sustain a loss, 
remainder of the present supply of trout 
and the planting of fry and fingerlings will be 
severely handicapped. 
The 
viewed in another column, is indeed deplorable, 
situation in Massachusetts, which is re- 
and it should serve to bestir every man who is 
fond of fishing to assist the wardens, not only 
illegal that the 
streams are so low and the trout at the mercy 
of poachers, but in the work of restocking, which 
must be done carefully and thoroughly. Other- 

in watching for fishing, now 
wise trouting trips of next year will become dis- 
couraging blanks. 
Every available fingerling must be liberated 
during the autumn in these stricken regions if 
even fair sport is looked forward to three years 

hence. What may be expected two years trom 
now or next season is a matter that cannot be 
guessed at, much less predicted now. 
Tue value of bird refuges is no longer 
Those that have already been estab 
The delta of the 
and in 
doubted. 
lished serve as object lessons. 
Mississippi is now a wild bird refuge, 
time it will 
island or sandbar here and there throughout the 
entire length of that river and establish similar 
the the Platte and 
other streams formerly frequented by vast flock 
become necessary to set aside an 
yreserves along 
Db 
Missouri, 

of geese and other waterfowl. Resting as well 
as breeding places are needed all along the 
route followed by migrating wildfowl. To a 
certain extent the reservation of these low 
islands would be productive of more lasting re- 
sults than under the present practice of fixing 
closed seasons. In the case of waterfowl it 
would in effect take the place of the uniform 
closed season so often advocated for all States 
where climatic and other conditions are much 
the same throughout the year. In the case of 
and well known fact 
frequent after 
wild ducks geese, it is a 
that 
season on their southern and northern migra- 
they certain places season 
tions if these places offer them shelter from the 
constant bombardment they are subjected to else 
where. 
mR 
To some persons the sailing vessel, which can 
make her way against the wind, has not ceased 
to call out praise for the men who have made 
this possible. It was only a little while ago that 
a substitute for the slow-going sailing ships was 
tried. 
a safe and comfortable voyage to Europe in less 
than five days, and the recent performance of 
To-day sportsmen tourists are promised 
the great Lusitania shows that this may be re- 
short time. 
: 
Because of the unusual density of the foliage 
alized within a very 
at this time, sportsmen who have gone to the 
woods for deer or grouse have experienced con- 
siderable difficulty in finding game. 

