46 THESAU DU BON@B OEE TION 
record as she studied Skimmers by the acre in Florida. December 29, 
1931, it was my pleasure to see large flocks of Black Skimmers on the 
Gulf off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi. 
I almost wish I were a collector to prove without question what I 
am satisfied is true. One wonders what becomes of individual birds that 
have gone astray in migration. 
EstHER A. CRAIGMILE. 
Notes from Here and | here 
The 1934 Duck and Quail Season 
In Adams County the hunters report the past season as the poorest 
Quail season in probably twenty-five years. The long drouth of the sum- 
mer dried up all the ponds and creeks with the result that young Quail 
were unable to get water to drink. Young birds were included in very few 
of the bags killed this season. Of course, there was the age-old statement 
that the birds were wild and had scattered, but no one seemed able to find 
the covies. (They are hard to find when they are nearly gone.) 
Similarly, duck hunters complain that the ducks had never come down 
from the North. ‘This plaint has been heard for the past few years. How- 
ever, weather reports and newspaper records show that Minnesota and 
parts of Canada were covered with more than a foot of snow, and good 
bags of birds were secured only on a few of the cluts, where the unsports- 
manlike and pernicious habit of baiting was tolerated. 
I hope the reading public will not be misled to believe that all the 
hunters in the state of Illinois are sympathetic with the baiting menace 
as we find it in some sections of the Illinois river. Mississippi river hunt- 
ers, as a whole, are very much against the baiting of ducks. It is basically 
wrong, and any biologist will agree that the shooting of birds either at the 
nest or at feeding locations is wrong. The sooner this unfortunate practice 
is stopped, the sooner we shall find an increase in the number of birds 
which migrate up and down the water courses yearly. 
The variable shooting season, which allowed shooting for three days 
of the week on one side of the river and two days a week for a longer 
period on the opposite side of the river, caused much misunderstanding 
and considerable hard feeling. It benefited the professional shooting loca- 
tions such as we find on the Illinois river where they bait, and works a 
hardship on the hunters along the Mississippi river where they resort to 
calling the birds in as they travel back and forth in search of natural food. 
The opinion of the majority of the local hunters seems to be that birds 
became used to feeding in certain localities during the week and were 
murdered on Saturday. Sunday kills were almost negligible, as the birds 
