Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. 
GrorGe Birp GRINNELL, President, 
r 
ork. 
346 Broadway, New 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. t 
Six Months, $1.50. 
Cuar.es B. Reynouwps, Secretary. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 


NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1907. 


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. 
—ForeEst AND StrREAM, Aug. 14, 1873. 
HAND-REARING GAME BIRDS.—IV. 
Tue work that has been done toward the arti- 
ficial hatching and rearing of our game birds 
up to within the last year or two has been 
wholly individual, undertaken as an experiment 
for pleasure, ‘carried on for a little while and 
then abandoned. In this way some experience 
has been gained by individuals, but it has hardly 
been of a nature to be of practical use to per- 
sons who really wish to accomplish results. 
Individuals have reared our Bob White quail 
and also one or more species of California quail, 
and it is well recognized by those who have had 
experience that these birds readily become en- 
tirely gentle; in other words, that they can be 
domesticated. Mr. J. B. Battelle, of Toledo, 
Ohio, and Prof. C. F. Hodge, of Worcester, 
Mass., have had great experience with the ruffed 
| grouse, and Prof. Hodge has succeeded in rear- 
ing these birds from the egg to maturity. Both 
of them have demonstrated that the bird was 
easily tamed. A like experience, so 
susceptibility to domestication goes, has been 
had with the pinnated grouse. A resident of 
1 New Brunswick tamed a number of spruce par- 
tridge which nested freely in confinement. 
In the upland of Virginia resides a gentle- 
+man who has succeeded in domesticating the 
wild turkey, a bird which has the reputation of 
being the shyest and most untamable of all our 
game birds. This gentleman, picking up by 
chance five young turkeys five years ago, has 
raised from them an extraordinary number of 
wild birds. 
Having confined these young, he proceeded 
'to tame them, a task which did not prove diffi- 
cult; for they soon became more confident of 
far as the 
the owner’s good intention than any of the do-: 
mestic fowls on the place, so that the owner, and 
the members of his family, could go up to the 
birds and place their hands on them. During 
the nesting season, the turkeys are confined in 
a large inclosure, the eggs of the hen turkeys 
are removed and hatched under domestic fowls, 
while domestic hen turkeys are employed to 
rear the young. The owner gets a maximum of 
forty eggs each from his hen turkeys. He de- 
clares that he has never lost any of his wild 
turkeys through disease, though some of course 
have been lost from accident, by dogs and by 
the ravages of noxious animals. Each year he 
has raised 90 per cent. of the young turkeys 
hatched. 
He believes them to be absolutely immune to 
disease, and when, several years ago during a 
protracted period of wet weather, practically 
all domestic turkeys in his section died, his wild 
turkeys suffered not at all. At another time 
there was an outbreak of cholera among the 
turkeys, which died by wholesale, but his wild 
turkeys, though in close association with the do- 
In the spring of 
birds those 
mestic birds, did not suffer. 
1907, after selling all the 
that he purposed to use for breeding, this gentle- 
except 
man had sixty wild turkeys in his pen. 
One of the most interesting things about this 
experiment is that, except during the breeding 
season and the shooting season, these birds are 
not confined at all. They wander over a con- 
siderable extent of territory, but invariably re- 
turn at night to their pen to roost. Not all of 
them go into the pen; many roost about it, but 
such is their tameness that at any time they can 
be led into the inclosure, which is covered above 
and perfectly confines them. 
The isolated experiments heretofore alluded 
to make it absolutely plain that whenever the 
right persons take hold of the bus‘ness of rear- 
ing game in confinement they will be success- 
pleat. it: 
should not, after a time, come to be carried on 
There is no reason why this work 
by a great many individuals, as well as by the 
fish and game commissions of the various States 
and by the Agricultural Department of the 
Federal Government. 
SPORTSMAN AND: LANDOWNER. 
IN some of the States in the Mississippi valley 
sportsmen living in towns and cities tell us they 
have almost made up their minds to put away 
their guns and cease attempting to hunt small 
game near home. No doubt similar conditions 
prevail elsewhere, but in that region the land- 
the sportsman seem to be on very 
We are reliably informed that men 
and about their home 
owner and 
bad terms. 
who are well known in 
towns find it very difficult to select any nearby 
covers in which they may pass an afternoon in 
peace. Nearly all farms are posted, and they 
are likely to be ordered off those that are not. 
The hoodlum with a gun is responsible for 
this state of affairs. He respects no man’s prop- 
erty, and has not only brought down upon his 
own head the wrath of the landowner, but has 
made the path of the decent, orderly sports- 
man an exceedingly thorny one. 
The latter has done everything in his power 
to secure better enforcement of the game laws 
and to draw tighter the restrictions that should 
protect the landowner from Despite 
all this, he is made to suffer, for the disorderly 
element cares nothing for property rights or 
laws, and if debarred from shooting on private 
lands, finds some way in which all hands can 
be made uncomfortable by reason of their noisy 
visits. ; 
Some owners have absolutely barred all per- 
sons from their lands. While they themselves 
may not hunt, they forbid others to do so, and 
the seeks recrea- 
trespass. 
conscientious sportsman, who 
; VOL, LXIX.—No. 14. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
tion and peace, prefers to hunt in other States 
or not at all, rather than face the possibility of 
being haled before a justice of the peace for 
passing a day afield in his home county. 
Ir the temperature happens to be low when 
President Roosevelt descends the Mississippi, he 
may have an opportunity to see some of the 
large flocks of geese that can generally be found 
in the autumn on the sandbars between St. Louis 
and Memphis. They spend the night and a part 
of the day sleeping and resting on these great 
sand wastes, and come in from the wheat fields 
at morning and evening in sufficient numbers 
to impress the stranger with the fact that some 
of their resting places should be reserved for- 
Such a plan would give them 
ever for them. 
refuges midway in their northern and southern 
Uniform laws are difficult of enact 
ment, for the 
to decide, ‘as the bars are in navigable waters 
migrations. 
but this is a matter Government 
od 
Tue demand for more sportsmanlike rods and 
both fresh and salt water angling 1s 
The 
fly-rods 1S 
that 
tackle for 
attracting widespread attention. recent 
action in favor of lighter salmon 
already resulting in increased interest in 
branch of fly-casting, a number of amateurs hav- 
ing taken it up during the past month, whereas 
under the old eighteen-foot rule little attention 
Along the Atlantic 
outfits are now being used, and on 
was given to salmon casting. 
coast lighter 
the West coast the use of light 
rods 1s being 
encouraged in a practical way. There, how- 
ever, the rule of restricting the tip alone to a 
certain weight should be changed, for it is not 
a sportsmanlike one. 
ad 
Tue New York Forest, Fish and Game Com- 
mission will enforce the law passed last spring 
relating to the time venison may be possessed 
The open season on deer ends Oct. 31 at mid- 
night, and venison may be possessed until mid- 
night of Nov. 3, for 
transportation at that time, in which case it may 
The Legislature 
unless it is in possession 
be delivered to its destination. 
neglected to repeal the section of the old law 
relating to possession, and the action taken by 
became necessary, in order to 
the commission 
avoid confusion and an erroneous construction 
of the conflicting sections. 
5 ad 
In changing the name of the Iield Columbian 
Museum of Chicago, to The Field Museum of 
Natural History, the directors of that institu- 
tion acted wisely, for the new title is descriptive 
and much more appropriate than the former one. 
The directors ask that the change be brought to 
the attention of all persons interested in this im- 
portant institution. 

