REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 21 
ripening grain, blackbirds break the stalks, the water supply may fail— 
no matter what the case, if there is anything wrong with the crops, the 
blame is placed on the ducks. 
Suggestions have been made that the season should ‘open earlier in 
the Sacramento Valley in order to make it legal to kill ducks in the rice 
fields previous to the harvest. The rice growers themselves are opposed 
to allowing hunters in the fields at this time as hunters do more damage 
than ducks. There would be so many hunters after ducks on the loaf- 
ing ground where no crops are grown, that the ducks would be driven 
into the rice fields and instead of relieving the situation, it would be 
made very much worse. 
It has been found that rice fields can be well protected by the use of 
searchlights and sky bombs, but there are numerous individuals, most 
of whom have no rice, that insist that the only way to prevent damage 
is to kill all the ducks. 
It is the intention of the Fish and Game Commission and the United 
States Biological Survey to make a complete investigation during the 
coming fall and to determine just how much damage is done by the 
ducks. 
Doves. There is much complaint from the section east of the San 
Joaquin River in District No. 1, on account of the dove season opening 
on August 1. In that section the doves are not through nesting and 
the killing of parent birds means the starvation of nestlings. The 
writer has a picture of young doves in a nest taken at Merced on the 
third day of September, 1917. It is, perhaps, a rather late nesting 
record but it is not at all unusual to find birds nesting even later. Cer- 
tainly the season should be arranged so that young birds should not be 
left to starve. 
In southern California, the dove hunters insist that the season should 
open not later than August 15. They say that by the first of Septem- 
ber the birds have all left. It is interesting that the same complaint 
is made in the northern part of District No. 1. In the Fresno and 
Merced sections the birds are still nesting in August. Just where the 
doves go from southern California and northern California is not 
explained. Fortunately, the argument in regard to the dove season is 
settled for a time by the fact that the protection of these valuable birds 
has been taken over by the federal government, in accordance with the 
provisions of the Migratory Bird Treaty with the British Government 
end a blanket season opening September 1 has been fixed. 
Quail. It is evident that the later opening of the quail season has 
been a most excellent measure. The birds are more mature by the 
fifteenth of November and greater work and skill is necessary if the 
