Our wild fowl and waders

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Wild Fowl
and Waders

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PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR

“OUR WILD FOWL
| AND WADERS

BY

DWIGHT W. HUNTINGTON

(Author of Our Feathered Game; Our Big Game, and Editor
of The Amateur Sportsman.)

WITH TWENTY-FOUR FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND
A MAP OF THE WILD DUCKS’ BREEDING GROUNDS

THE AMATEUR SPORTSMAN CoO.
18-20 East 42d Street
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
THE AMATEUR SPORTSMAN CO.

Published, December, 1910

CHARLES F. BLOOM PRESS
130-132 WILLIAM ST.
NEW YORK

2 A

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS

WIED, DUGKS= FOR SPORT -AND
PROEES

HOW TO MAKE A WILD DUCK PRE-
SERVE SALE AND ATTRACTIVE

WHEN AND WHERE TO PROCURE
STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS—ENG-
Gish. AND* AMERICAN “GAME
FARMS .

NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

RECA: REARING OR WiLL
DUCKS

YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD
YOUNG, DUCKS ON THE POND.

THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME
WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

THE GROUND AND WATER ENE-
MIES OF WILD FOWL

AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS .

iii

88
97

1V

» GIVE

XV.

OVA:

Devel:
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.

CONTENTS
LOSE ORM-A DUCK CRUE ORS Y Ne
DIATE:

DHE. “RESTORATION, 4©OF) WAEED
FOWL, LURING (DUCKSS AND
GEESE

Wi) DUCK "SHOOTING ZONs Eine
SERVES

DISEASES ,OR WIELD DUCKS
WED: GERSE :
THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS
REMEDIAL

APPENDIX
(1) The Distribution and Migration of
Wild Fow! .

(2) A Proposed Law for Breeders of
Game-

105

161

LIST OF ILLUS#RATIONS

PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR . : : : : Frontispiece

Facing

Page
MALLARDS IN AUGUST . 5 : 4 A : : ; vi
THE Ducks’ PARADISE—MApP . : ; : : : 2
YOUNG MALLARDS GOING TO FEEDING GROUNDS . 5 10
A LAKE FULL oF DUCKS : ‘ z ; : : Pay ne i
BLUEBILLS SUNNING . : 5 : : ' : 4) 2G
HATCHED IN CONNECTICUT . 2 ; : : : ~T16
YOUNG MALLARDS ON A NEW JERSEY PRESERVE . : 0-24
WALLACE EVANS’ GAME FARM _.. : ; : ; 30
MALLARDS FLUSHED ON REARING GROUND . ; : 5 EY
INTERIOR HATCHING HOUSE . : ; : : a Oe
YOuNG Ducks INCUBATED BY ELECTRICITY IN NEW YORK . 56
DINNER TIME ‘ ‘ : , ; : : ‘ 5
AFTER DINNER—YOUNG MALLARDS RETURNING TO LAKE ._ 66
Ducks AT LAKE WORTH F : : Sa at : 2 168
PIN-TAIL EGes : : : : ee O)
WILD DUCKS IN CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK : : 5 TW
EGG-STEALING CROW . : ; f ; : : a tl)
DEcoY OWL . : 5 ; : ; oe
GooD BAG OF CROWS anus Oven A DECOY OWL . : . 86
A SCARE-FOX ; : ‘ : ; , ; : aw | fete)
BLUEBILL SHOT AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY BONNYCASTLE DALE 98
GAMEKEEPER’S COTTAGE ON AN AMERICAN PRESERVE . . 106
A MARKET GUNNER . : ‘ : , 26
WILD GEESE IN CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK : ; 4a Jilisy!
Woopcock . : : 3 ; i : : AG
ENGLISH WILD mone : : 2 é : : . 156

PIN-TAILS : 2 ; ‘ ‘ : : : i 5 ke

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I
INTRODUCTION

HIS is the first book written for American readers
on the practical conservation of game. It deals
with the methods of propagation and preservation which
are essential to make game abundant and to keep it plen-
tiful in places where field sports are permitted. It is
entirely different in plan and purpose from my earlier
books. |
All of the American works on field sports describe the
various methods of pursuit and destruction; although
they contain, usually, something about the habitat,
breeding and food habits, and migration of game, they
are silent about the practical and profitable methods of
increasing its numbers. The same may be said about
our ornithologies and books on natural history. The
writers often deplore the fact that the game birds are
vanishing; they have insisted upon the enactment of
many laws restricting sport, but they overlook the fact
that such laws prevent the increase of game by breeders.
There is a disposition throughout the country to remedy
this mistake, and the game laws have been amended in
some States so as to encourage the profitable breeding
of game.
Elliot, referring to the incessant persecution of the

2 INTRODUCTION

birds, in his “Wild Fowl of North America,” says: “AI-
though it is apparent to all save those who will not see,
that only a brief period can elapse, if the same conditions
continue, before, like the buffalo, our water fowl will
mostly disappear, yet little is done to save them from
destruction, and the ruthless slaughter goes gaily on.”
There can be no doubt that laws restricting and even
prohibiting sport are necessary in places where no one
looks after the game properly. Such laws have delayed,
somewhat, the extirpation of the game, but the fact re-
mains that many species have not increased in numbers
or even held their own in populous regions since the en-
actment of the restrictive laws, and no one can claim that
such legislation will restore our indigenous wild food
birds or keep them abundant in our markets. One reason
is that the laws cannot be properly executed. The area
to be policed is too big. Mr. L. T. Carleton, of Maine,
one of the best State game officers, has well said that the
entire State militia would be inadequate to properly pro-
tect the game. But even if it were possible to execute
the game laws, there are good reasons why they would
not save the wild fowl. In settled regions the nesting
and feeding grounds of the ducks have been destroyed,
and in the Far North the marshes are now being drained.

One of the chief causes for the decrease in the num-
bers of our wild ducks is undoubtedly the draining of the
marshes and the destruction of their breeding and feed-
ing grounds. Nearly all of the desirable ducks which
are shot in the United States east of the Rocky Moun-
tains are bred in a comparatively small area, which may
be described roughly as including parts of Wisconsin,
Minnesota and North Dakota and parts of the Canadian

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INTRODUCTION 3

Provinces, north of North Dakota, and as far west as
Alberta.

This region has been named “the ducks’ paradise.”
Millions of ducks are hatched in this region, although
their numbers have decreased much and the breeding
area has been much reduced, especially within the United
States.

Mr. Wells W. Cooke, of the United States Biological
Survey, an authority on the migration of birds, says:
“The prairie districts of Central Canada, comprising
large portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta,
are ‘the ducks’ paradise.’ Within the United States this
favored region extends to the North Eastern part of
Montana, the Northern half of North Dakota and the
North Western corner of Minnesota. The whole vast
region is crowded with lakes, ponds, sloughs and
marshes that furnish ideal nesting conditions and un-
limited food. Forty years ago every available nook was
crowded with water fowl, and the whole region, 200
miles wide by 400 miles in length, was a great breeding
colony and numbered its inhabitants by the hundreds of
thousands.”

The building of the Northern Pacific Railway across
the Southern boundary of “the ducks’ paradise’ was
followed by the building of the Canadian Pacific Rail-
way through the center of it, and, as Mr. Cooke well says,
it is evident that in the United States and Southern Can-
ada in a few years there will be no great breeding colo-
nies of the ducks most valued for sport and for the table.
Edmonton, Alberta, a growing city of over 20,000 in-
habitants, is about in the center of the breeding ground
for canvas backs and other desirable ducks, and other

4 INTRODUCTION

cities and towns in the paradise are increasing in popula-
tion rapidly.

This matter is of the utmost importance to all duck
shooters East of the Rocky Mountains, since the ducks
which are shot throughout this portion of the United
States must come, for the most part, from the breeding
grounds above described. The duck clubs in the Mis-
sissippi valley and about the great lakes and on the At-
lantic coast, from New Jersey to Florida, should be much
interested in the preservation of “the ducks’ paradise,”
since when this is destroyed the shooting on the club
marshes will be sadly lessened and the splendid proper-
ties of the clubs must decrease in value accordingly.
How to prevent the destruction of the breeding grounds
is one of the most important problems for the duck
shooters. Some big parks or refuges for ducks should
be established in this region, and the inhabitants should
be taught to save some of the breeding grounds, which
they own, because it will pay better to do so than to
drain them. It is evident that laws prohibiting the shoot-
ing on certain days of the week and limiting the open
season and the size of the bag can only delay the extir-
pation of the ducks; they do not govern the most im-
portant matter—the preservation of the breeding
grounds. This can only be accomplished in the ways I
have pointed out. We should remember, always, that
restrictive laws of the character just mentioned make it
not worth while for the land owners to save the marshes
and the fowl. No one can be expected to do anything
which does not pay.

The wild ducks which migrate up and down the Pa-
cific coast are hatched, for the most part, North of the

INTRODUCTION 5

United States as far North as Alaska. Parks, or breed-
ing reservations, in the Western ducks’ paradise should
be created, where the birds can find safe nesting places
for all time to come.

Andividuals and clubs should rear many of the most |
desirable ducks locally, so that they can have excellent
shooting before the migratory ducks arrive from the
North. The markets in this way should be kept full of
wild ducks during a long open season at prices surpris-
ingly small.

No game can survive when its breeding places are de-
stroyed, unless other breeding places are provided, no
matter how many laws may be made for its protection.
The time has arrived to encourage the propagation of
game and to make it worth while to preserve suitable
places for its profitable increase.

It was only a few years ago that the discovery was
made in England that the wild duck could be preserved
and made abundant for sport and for profit by the hand-
rearing process, which was known to work well with
pheasants and other game. Prior to this important dis-
covery every one thought that the wild duck was too
wild to be handled successfully and that any attempt to
preserve it would result in producing sport for others
and not for those who reared the ducks. Some simple
experiments, however, made by gamekeepers proved the
contrary to be true, and in a very few years after the
experiments were made nearly every small water in. Eng-
land had its wild ducks. Scores of English wild ;duck
farmers now make a good living by selling their ducks
and eggs. Many individuals and clubs, or syndicates,
as they say in England, also rear thousands of ducks for

6 INTRODUCTION

sport, many of which are sent to market, and the English
wild fowlers, or market gunners, are busy on the public
waters for six months in the year with no fear of extir-
pating the game. 7

More than ten thousand ducks were reared in a season
at Netherby Hall, and the skilled gamekeeper who
achieved this remarkable success proved that big bags
of ducks can be shot safely every season.

The late Rutherford Stuyvesant introduced the new
sport to America, and he was fortunate in securing the
services of George Edgar, the keeper who had made the
wild fowl abundant at Netherby. Ducks and eggs were
imported from England and within the year, after the
start was made, several thousand mallards and other
fowl were reared about some artificial ponds on the
Stuyvesant farm in New Jersey. Those who were
invited to shoot were enthusiastic in praising the new
sport.

In addition to the birds which were shot, the game-
keeper produced many ducks and eggs which were sold
to other duck rearers in New York and New Jersey and
as far south as Virginia. Wild ducks are now reared on
many game farms and afford splendid sport to many
guns.

Upon the untimely death of Mr. Stuyvesant, Mr. Edgar
went to another country place in New Jersey, whose
owner had purchased some of his ducks and eggs, and
although the season was late when he started, he suc-
ceeded in rearing this year several thousand mallards,
besides a big lot of pheasants and a few guinea hens,
which, by the way, fly nicely and soon may be added to
our game bird list.

INTRODUCTION 7

I have made some experiments with several species
of wild ducks by which I ascertained that it is an easy
matter to increase their numbers in places where they
are properly looked after. Often I have visited Mr.
Edgar and other gamekeepers in order to study their
methods of breeding wild fowl, and much of the material
‘for this book was procured on American game farms and
preserves.

I am indebted also to the writers of the English books,
to whom I have given credit, and to the writers of nu-
merous articles which have appeared from time to time
in the English magazines since the discovery was made
that the wild fowl can be preserved. The breeding of wild
ducks should interest the farmers as well as the sports-
men, since many small swamps and waste places can be
utilized for profit as well as for sport. Many species of
ducks are excellent food, and I have no hesitation in
predicting that the best wild ducks soon will be abundant
and cheap in our markets. The sportsmen who are will-
ing to do something practical should have excellent
shooting during a long open season, and it is evident that
those who do nothing will be benefitted when the game
becomes plentiful, since the game overflows from all
places where it is abundant.

Although the shore birds, or waders, do not lend them-
selves to the gamekeepers’ art of hand-rearing, they have
been found to respond nicely to the protection given to
the ducks, and they increase in numbers rapidly when
safe nesting and feeding places are provided for them.
I have observed the woodcock, snipe, and other waders
breeding abundantly on duck preserves where game-
keepers are employed to control the natural enemies of

8 INTRODUCTION

game, and those who undertake to preserve the wild
duck will do well to provide suitable nesting and feed-
ing places for these desirable food birds and to extend
to them the same practical protection from their natural
enemies which is given to the ducks.

II
DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS

HERE are sixty-four species of ducks, geese and
swans in North America north of Mexico. All of these
birds are described and pictured in my book, “Our Fea-
thered Game.” Twenty-four species breed in the United
States. Aside from the aesthetic value of the birds many
of them are valuable as food and are accordingly legiti-
mate objects of pursuit. The ducks are classified by the
ornithologists as sea ducks, or divers, and fresh water
ducks, or dabblers. Many species of the sea ducks are not
very desirable as food on account of the fishy, or sedgy,
character of their flesh, but all of the fresh water ducks
are palatable and nutritious and well worth preserving.
Among the sea ducks, the famous canvas back, the
redhead, the two scaups (black heads or bluebills), the
golden-eye, buffle head and ruddy duck are the most
valuable. The fresh water ducks are the mallard, dusky
or black duck, the blue-winged, green-winged and cin-
namon teal, the shoveller, widgeon, sprig-tail, gadwall,
and wood-duck. |
Although the sea ducks nest in some of the Northern
States and much can be done in the way of protecting
them when breeding wild in places where their natural

9

10 DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS

foods are abundant, they are not so easily domesticated
or handled on game preserves as the fresh water ducks
are. It may be when game keeping becomes common
in the United States that the more valuable species of
sea ducks will be hand-reared as the mallards and some
of the other fresh water ducks now are. Since the can-
vas backs and redheads command high prices in the
markets and are highly prized by sportsmen, the game
farmer or game preserver who can successfully multiply
them will find the industry profitable, and some inter-
esting experiments with these birds could be made in
Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota and in other
States as far west as Oregon and in the Canadian Prov-
inces in localities where the wild celery and wapato and
other natural foods of these ducks are abundant. Many
sea ducks undoubtedly can be induced to nest in a wild
state beside safe and attractive waters, and they should
increase in numbers rapidly in places where they are
properly looked after and where their natural enemies
are closely controlled.

The mallard undoubtedly is the best duck for the game
preserve where hand-rearing is carried on, and the mal-
lards are by far the most abundant of all fowl on the
English preserves. The dusky duck, often called the
black mallard, has been domesticated in many places in
America, and it should be reared on preserves quite as
easily as the mallard is. In England the teal, sprig-
tail and widgeon have been successfully propagated by
gamekeepers, and all of the river ducks can be made
abundant, without doubt, on American preserves where
gamekeepers are employed. Since the wood-duck nests
in trees, suitable nesting places should be provided for

MALLARDS GOING TO FEEDING GROUND

YOUNG

DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS 11

them. They have been domesticated in many places
and often breed in parks and zoological gardens, and
both the ducks and their eggs can be procured from
American game farmers.

A mixed bag is attractive and desirable, and the game
preservers, no doubt, will successfully rear most, if not
all, of the fresh water ducks when game preserving be-
comes common. The English teal, which has been suc-
cessfully bred on preserves, and some of the other Eng-
lish ducks probably can be introduced to advantage and
made abundant on American game farms and preserves.
Many English game farmers have both the birds and
their eggs for sale in large numbers.

The wild geese for the most part breed in the far
North, and it seems doubtful if many species could be
handled on the preserves in the United States. The
Canada, or common wild goose, has been domesticated
in many of the States, and undoubtedly it can be reared
in large numbers on many preserves and game farms
for sport and for profit. “Mr. Whealton, of Chincoteague
Island, Virginia, is a very successful breeder of Canada
geese and can supply birds and eggs in large numbers.

The swans are very ornamental birds and often are
seen in parks and zoological gardens, but it seems doubt-
ful if they ever will be bred for sport on the preserves.

My own experiments with wild ducks were confined
to the mallards and dusky ducks, but I have seen several
other species breeding on game farms and preserves in
America. The methods of making the breeding grounds
safe and attractive and of controlling the natural ene-
mies of the wild ducks, which are described in the fol-
lowing pages, are applicable to all species of ducks which

12 DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS

nest in a wild state on preserves. The hand-rearing or
artificial propagation of ducks, which is fully described,
has been found to increase the numbers of the mallards
far more rapidly than they are increased when the birds
nest in a wild state, and there seems to be no good rea-
son why many of the other ducks should not be success-
fully hand-reared. The game preserver can undertake
many interesting experiments, and I have no doubt it
will not be long before many species of ducks will be
multiplied by hand-rearing, which consists in stealing
the eggs from the ducks as they are laid and of hatching
them under barnyard hens or in incubators and in feed-
ing the young ducks until they are eight or nine weeks
old, when they are turned down on the pond or lake.
All birds are comparatively tame during the nesting
season. There is a record of a ptarmigan being taken
from its nest on a mountain top in Colorado and handled
without causing it to desert the nest. Many birds, how-
ever, will cease laying and desert their nests when their
eggs are removed, and until the species of ducks which
thus far have not been hand-reared can be induced to
continue laying when their eggs are stolen, artificial
rearing, of course, is impossible, and they can only be
bred naturally. As I have suggested, there is an inter-
esting field for experiment with many species which at
present are not hand-reared in captivity on preserves.
It is well known that all game thrives best in localities
where it breeds (or formerly bred) naturally in a wild
state and that birds which are introduced to new regions
often do not do well. A knowledge of the breeding
range of the wild ducks is important, therefore, and a
full account of the range of all of the species which are

DUCKS, GEESE AND SWANS US.

worth preserving for food and for sport will be found
in the appendix.

Many species which now breed rarely or not at all in
many States once were abundant during the nesting
season. The breeding range extended much farther
South than it does. Only a few years ago I saw many
wild ducks breeding abundantly in the Dakotas, Mon-
tana and elsewhere in places where they no longer
occur. They have been driven away by incessant per-
secution and by the draining of the marshes, but easily
they can be restored and kept abundant in many places,
provided, always, their nesting and feeding grounds be
made safe and attractive.

III
WILD DUCKS. FOR SPORE AND PROEDTE

T is quite as easy to have wild ducks as it is to have
| tame ones. The wild birds are far more interesting
than domesticated ducks are, and in many places they
should be much less expensive to rear since they will
procure a good part of their food about the margins of
the ponds and in the woods and fields. As ornaments
for country places, the alert and handsome wild ducks,
which spring into the air from land or water with such
great rapidity that the fastest cameras cannot picture
them without a blur and which fly about on swift wings,
often at great heights, delight the eye and charm the
observer, even if he be not interested in the double bar-
relled gun. The domesticated duck, which cannot use its
wings and cannot run or even walk gracefully, in no way
can be compared with the trim and alert mallard, teal,
widgeon, the beautiful wood-duck, and many other hand-
some wild fowl which are indigenous to North America.

As objects of sport wild ducks are highly regarded by
gunners, and the rearing of these splendid wild food
birds can be made profitable under the rational laws
permitting such industry which recently have been en-
acted in some of the States and which soon will be en-

14

Aosdof, MON UL dATAOSAIq BV UO MATA

SMONdG WO TIN OAMVI V

WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT 15

acted everywhere in America. It is less than a score of
years since wild ducks first were artificially reared in
England, and the older country has, therefore, only a
short lead, so far as wild ducks are concerned. American
enterprise can be relied upon to overtake her. The ponds
and marshes which are suitable for wild fowl are far
more numerous and extensive and far less expensive in
America than similar places are in England; the proper-
ties used for duck rearing in America can be larger than
they are abroad, and a greater number of wild ducks can
be reared in a wild state by simply protecting the nesting
birds from their natural enemies and trespassers and
from stray dogs and cats, which are said to do more
damage than foxes and hawks.

Much worthless land, partly covered by water, can be
made profitable by the restoration of the wild fowl, and
the countless lakes and ponds throughout the United
States and British Provinces, which are now desolate,
can be adorned with this charming form of wild life.
Some of the most intelligent State game officers have
given this subject their attention, and many individuals
and clubs already have begun the good work of restora-
tion and propagation. Many game farmers in England
produce thousands of wild ducks and eggs every season,
and a number of game farms have been started in
America, some of which can fill large orders for both
birds and eggs. Some of the duck breeders wrote last
season (1909) that they sold all the ducks they produced
at satisfactory prices. The mallards and some of the more
common species of ducks sold at $3 and $ per pair, and
the wood-duck sold for $15 per pair, and in some places
these birds brought even higher prices. The eggs of the

16 WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT

mallard and black duck brought $3 per dozen, and the
eggs of other species brought $6 per dozen and possibly
more.

The number of sportsmen who are engaged in propa-
gating wild fowl for sport has increased rapidly since the
discovery was made that wild ducks can be controlled
within reasonable. bounds.

My experiments with wild ducks, which will be re-
ferred to later, proved that it is a very easy matter to
multiply these beautiful and interesting birds and that
they will not desert provided they be properly handled.

The rapid decrease in the numbers of our American
game birds long has attracted the attention of sports-
men and naturalists. All now realize that we must create
before we can safely destroy game, or at least we must
control the natural enemies of game and in this way
make a safe place for our shooting. Long ago I pointed
out the necessity for individual action if we would restore
our game and make it again plentiful in our markets.
The United States Department of Agriculture in a recent
bulletin on “Deer Farming” referred to the necessity for
individual action, and the people are learning the reason
why the game vanishes and what should be done to make
it abundant and cheap.

Herbert K. Job, who has made many remarkable photo-
graphs of wild ducks and their nests, writing for The
Amateur Sportsman, said: “To one who is fond of water
fowl it is a real grievance and aggravation to scan with
longing eyes the waters of almost any pond or lake in
our Eastern districts, however retired the locality, and,
ordinarily, see not a solitary duck or web-footed bird
floating on the surface. If, indeed, even a solitary duck

BLUEBILLS SUNNING
Vhotograph by Bonnyeastle Dale

HATCHED IN CONNECTICUT
Egg From Saskatchewan—Photograph by H. K. Job

WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT 17

should be so rash as to exhibit itself in this fashion, the
whole neighborhood would rise in arms to kill it or chase
it away. What few ducks there are hide in the swamps
and venture into the ponds only at dusk and during the
night.”*

Having described a flock of ducks, containing many
of the best species, which he observed near the Harvard
bridge, between Boston and Cambridge, and which were
perfectly at their ease, because they knew they were ina
safe place, Mr. Job says: “There is no earthly reason,
especially in regions where wild fowl are somewhat nu-
merous, why this sort of thing might not become a
regular and normal condition, to the manifold delight of
the land owner and the public at large.”

All that is necessary to bring about such desirable con-
ditions is for the people to learn how and where they can
have wild ducks in abundance as ornaments or for sport
or for profit and that it will pay them in more ways than
one to look after the fowl properly.

The Rev. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, in a lecture on
“Wild Duck Breeding for Sport,” published in The Shoot-
ing Times and British Sportsman (Dec. 8, 1906), says:

“Tt is not of day dreams in the crowded city or railway
carriage that I am now going to speak, but of simple, and
at the same time practical, facts, which any land owner or
businesslike keeper who has at command a lake, pond or
slow flowing stream can turn to profit in increasing the
sport which the acres in his possession will supply. Wild
duck breeding and training for shooting purposes are
quite simple matters—there are no mysteries in the un-
dertaking. It is, indeed, so easy that the wonder is that
*The Amateur Sportsman, March, 1909.

18 WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT

it has not extended long ago far and wide over every
sporting estate in the kingdom. There are many spots
which by nature are only indifferent situations for pheas-
ant and partridge cultivation, that are yet admirably
suited for the production of ‘high flying wild fowl.’

“As a matter of fact, I have never been resident in a
country village where there was a fair supply of water—
even when only a small beck, or brook—without finding
the wild duck breeding. In my earliest days, too, when
from association my attention was especially drawn to
them in the Trent Valley, I do not remember a farm yard
collection of ducks which was not visited by ‘wild flying’
drakes from the decoy.* The domestic and wild forms
were so frequently crossed in the neighborhood of my
home that ‘tame fliers—namely, halfbred wild ducks,
which fly away with their cousins—were a frequent
source of annoyance and loss at Ashby Decoy. It is with
some confidence, then, that I can speak of the wild duck

*A decoy is simply a piece of water of a certain size, from which radi-
ate shallow, curving channels spanned by crescent shaped supports.
The supports sustain net, forming a tunnel, known as a pipe. The num-
ber of pipes may be from one to a dozen or so, according to the size of
the water. The Wrentham decoy, in Norfolk, has ten pipes, a larger
number than that possessed by any other active decoy in the Eastern
Counties, if not in our islands. Iron supports, their ends firmly em-
bedded in the soil on either side of the channel, are used at the mouth
of the pipe and for some distance down, and saplings as the channel
narrows. The supports are placed at intervals of about five feet. These
arches are usually about twelve feet high and twenty feet wide at the
mouth of the pipe. They become smaller and smaller, till at the end of
the pipe they are found to be only two feet high; thus when the whole
structure is covered with net we have a gradually narrowing and cury-
ing pipe, the course of which cannot be seen by the duck till their re-
treat is cut off. At the end of the pipe is a detachable bag shaped net,
known as a tunnel net. The length of a pipe is usually about seventy
yards. On the bank of the decoy, and for some way down the convex
side of the pipe, are screens, six feet high, and covered with rushes, so
arranged in echelon that the decoyman can pursue his tactics without
being seen by the birds on the water, and yet can show himself, or

WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT 19

and record a forty years’ remembrance of its ways and
doings. co add

“Provided you have water, and trees for shelter, and
the fowl are undisturbed by shooting or constant flush-
ing, there is no place so noisy, or so frequented by man,
in which the true wild duck will not breed. In the lake of
the city park, in the ballast pit by the ever roaring rail-
way junction, close by the reverberating boiler works,
where riveting hammers—or Nasmyth’s ponderous ma-
chinery—are at work, where human scent is wafted to
them at every breeze, wild fowl nest and rear their young
in peace. It is not the presence of humanity that wild
fowl object to—it is to constant, inquisitive interference,
or shooting. Any place near water is good enough for
them where they are left alone for feeding and breeding.
Decoy men are quite right in keeping their waters as se-
cluded and quiet as possible, for the best of reasons.
Their native birds gather ‘foreigners’ into their pond
every night, and the slightest unusual sound or human
allow his dog to show itself, at any point. The tall screens are usually
connected by low ones, over which the dog, commonly known as a
“piper,” is able to jump without difficulty. . . . Ducks are enticed into
the pipes either by means of decoy birds or by the antics of a dog, care-
fully trained for the work. . . . At last all the lagging fowl of the
gathering have entered the pipe. Then, without a sound, the decoy-
man darts back to the mouth of the pipe, where, unseen by other bunches
of duck on the decoy, he suddenly shows himself to the birds under the
net. At the sight of him and his waving handkerchief the trapped birds
rise in a cloud and fly up the narrowing pipe. The decoyman, on the bank,
follows them at headlong speed. A few moments later he is engaged in
extracting his victims, one by one, from the tunnel net and wringing
their necks.—“Wild Fowl.”; L. H. De Visme Shaw, p. 116.

A large number of these decoys are operated in England, Wales and
Ireland, and many wild ducks are procured for the market. The first
decoy was set up in the reign of James II. “The Land of the Broads,”
cited by Shaw. Decoying was practiced in Holland prior to the time of
Sir William Wodehouse, who constructed the first English decoy. 15,000

fowl have been taken in a decoy in a season.—De Visme Shaw. “Wild
Fowl,” p. 121.

20 WILD) DUCKS FOR/SPORT AND, PROETD

aroma sends these strangers to human presence winging
their way to discover more secure abodes. Breeding for
the gun is altogether another matter; the producer relies
on his own stock of birds, and not on the nightly supply
of truly wild ones, which are the decoyman’s daily profit.

“The ideal spot for wild duck breeding is, no doubt, a
hilly country more or less covered with woods, and in
them lakes, or lakelets, supplied by perennial burns to
keep the water fresh and to bring down a supply of food,
such as the Ferintosh part of the Culladen estate, near
Dingwall, in Ross-shire. With lakes half a mile apart in
a circle amid the hills the finest sport imaginable can be
obtained. The fowl can be driven, or trained to fly, from
lake to lake, and give the best sporting shots to hidden
guns lying in wait. The owner of one lake or large pond
need not despair; he can have his shoot, too, in its way
as good, and even more certain than that of his luckier
neighbor with many waters. When birds are merely
driven from lake to lake over guns, the sport is more like
flight shooting, as followed by the sea coast, and, in con-
sequence, has also much of its uncertainties. At its very
best it can hardly be better when the mere quality of the
shooting obtained is considered, without regard to the
circumstances of its production, than when the ducks are
sent in threes and fours, as they are let out of a cage ona
hillside over the guns, to a lake or pond beyond them.
Failing a hillside, a line of trees, or nets supported on
wires by poles, are nearly as good in giving high flight
and speed.

“The mallard* most frequently, in a perfectly wild

*Decoymen make a useful distinction in classing their take of fowl.
The male bird, or drake, is “the mallard,” the female always “the duck.”

WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT 2l

state, is a slightly polygamous bird. In pinioned confine-
ment it is absolutely polygamous, and one drake will
mate with four ducks, or even five, when in full fertility.
Wild fowl live to a great age. In 1876 old Tom Tacey
showed me a duck in full male plumage—namely, with
green-purple head and curled tail feathers—which he had
bred thirty-five seasons before. As he said, she was sur-
rounded by descendants to the twenty-eighth generation,
but had given up all interest in breeding matters long
before. ‘I only keep her ’cos she’s the best ’coy duck I
have, and her young are the best breed I have.’ So much
for pedigree.

“Eighteen to twenty years is not an uncommon age for
old decoy fowl, but we are not speaking tonight of de-
coying.

“Breeders for shooting should be careful to use only
young and specially fertile stock, selected annually for
flying qualities. Additions to the future breeding stock
should have been carefully chosen and pinioned before
the first battue.

“When undisturbed, the wild duck naturally begins sit-
ting on her eggs about the beginning of April; but nests
with eggs, or little ducklings, may be found every month
of the year. This, however, is only the case where the
birds are robbed again and again of their complement of
eggs, just when incubation is on the point of commenc-
ing. It is most rare for the wild duck, in a purely natural
state, to be truly double brooded, but I have even known
cases of this. Food must abound, and the nesting fowl
must have perfect security from the disturbance of their
own species, as well as from their natural enemies. AIl-
most any situation is good enough for a wild duck’s nest,

22 WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT

from a hedge bottom, bushy bankside, a bed of nettles in
the open fields, to a deserted crow’s or rook’s nest in the
tree tops. Where the birds are much harried by nest
seekers, or foxes, they find security on high stacks, pol-
lard willows, or, failing these, in the loftiest nests of tree
building birds. The problem is to say where the duck
will not nest when it suits her purpose; abroad they
sometimes occupy the nesting boxes provided for the
golden-eyed duck (Clangula glaucion, Linn.) Height is
no hindrance to a good mother duck; as soon as her nest-
lings are fit for locomotion she carries them to a selected
spot in her bill. I saw one doing this as late as Aug. 20,
1902. Where foxes and vermin are over abundant the
duck is knowing enough to forsake continuous cover or
hedges for an isolated bed of thistles or nettles in the
open. In bitter weather, hollow trees are not forgotten,
if the opening faces south; and, failing all other suitable
spots and old nests, a small depression in the open field
is taken advantage of.”

IV

HOWe TO MAKE A WILD DUCK PRESERVE
SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE

LTHOUGH many wild ducks can be reared in a
farmyard where there is no pond, lake or stream,
provided they have access to a water trough or pan of
water at all times, it is evident that they will do better
provided they be reared under more natural surround-
ings near a good sized lake, pond, stream or slough.
The place selected for a preserve should, if possible,
have several waters at some distance from each other,
either a number of ponds or a pond and a small stream
or slough, since the shooting will be best where the
ducks can fly about from one water to another.

In England there are some small shoots where there
is very little water, but the shooting under such condi-
tions is often too artificial to suit our American taste.

There can be no doubt that large numbers of duck
can be reared and that they will thrive about very small
bodies of water, mere puddles in fact, and on one of the
largest preserves in England, where thousands of ducks
are shot annually, the little ponds are artificial.

Captain Oates, who owns a small preserve in England,
says wild fowl can undoubtedly be reared far from any

23

24 SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES

large piece of water, but I am strongly of the opinion
that birds do better on a good sized stretch of water
with a stream running into it and out of it. Given these
advantages, the running water must be constantly
bringing a fresh supply of food, especially after a fall of
rain sufficiently heavy to cause a rise of water; further,
if the stream which runs out of our lake empties itself
into a large river the latter will, when it floods or rises,
rapidly cause our strearh to back up and bring in a
further supply of food from the main river. The supply
of fresh food is a gratifying source of economy to the
grain bill. ;

Mr. L. H. De Visme Shaw, in a book on “Wild Fowl,”
says: “The pieces of water one proposes to convert into
duck ponds should be as near the middle of the shoot
as possible; the distance separating them from each
other should preferably be not less than half a mile.
The larger they are the better. Their situation must be
so far isolated that there is no risk of the birds being
disturbed.

“There may be a stream running through the shoot,
or there may be ponds or springs suitably situated. In
the former case dams can be built to hold up a body of
water sufficient to last through any spell of drought
during which the stream may run dry. The possibility
of water giving out during a dry season must always be
one of the first considerations, this possibility being
obviated by efficient puddling.”

I have seen several thousand ducks which were
successfully reared about some very small artificial
ponds on an American preserve, and I have also seen a
good lot of ducks which were reared on a quail preserve,

GAUTHSHYd AGSHUACL MAN V NO SGUVITVN DNOOK

= *

SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES 25

where a small pond was made for them by building a
very inexpensive dam across a little stream. The big
quail preserves in North Carolina easily could produce
a large number of fowl about ponds made by damming
the small streams. 3

There are hundreds of thousands of likely ponds,
sloughs and marshy streams in America where wild
ducks formerly nested, but which have been shot out.
The swamps, ponds and sloughs are absolutely worth-
less for agricultural purposes until they are drained,
with the exception of those where cranberries are
grown, and there is room enough in America for every
gun to have desirable duck shooting during a long open
season at a very small expense, provided the ducks be
properly looked after and not driven away as they are
now whenever they attempt to nest.

Although the ducks can be introduced easily and
made abundant in many localities where they never were
known to occur, it is evident that the best place to
- start a duck ranch or preserve is on or in the vicinity
of the ground over which the wild fowl travel during
their migrations, since many birds will be attracted by
those on the ground and will remain to interbreed with
them, provided the place be made safe and attractive.
The best place of all is, of course, a place where wild
fowl are now nesting in good numbers, and there are
hundreds of square miles in the region known as the
“ducks’ paradise,” in Canada, where ducks breed every
season. One-tenth of this area, if properly preserved,
would feed the people of the North American continent
with all the ducks they could possibly eat, and, at the
same time, the duck shooting throughout the country

26 SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES

as far South as Florida would be made better than it
ever was, and it would remain so for all time to come.
As it is, the breeding grounds are being drained rapidly, ©
since it does not pay to keep them for ducks.

Ponds which are shallow and which contain much
food in the water and about the shores are more suitable
for rearing places for ducks than ponds with rocky or
gravelly shores. But even the last named ponds can be
made to support a good head of ducks, provided the
birds be well fed with grain.

I have had inquiries recently from people in New
England who contemplated rearing ducks as to the at-
titude of the wild ducks towards trout and other desir-
able game fishes. Since the ponds where it was pro-
posed to introduce the ducks are fully stocked with
trout, their owners did not wish to add the ducks if
these would put an end to their trout fishing. They were
anglers, and the duck shooting was only a secondary
pleasure.

My knowledge of the food habits of the more desir-
able river ducks, which are best suited to the preserve,
led me to believe that the ducks would not interfere
with or destroy the fishes, especially if the birds could-
secure the food they liked best, or if they were fed, as
they should be, sufficiently to keep them at home. Not
having any positive information on the subject, how-
ever, I referred this important matter to the United
States Commissioner of Fisheries, who wrote as fol-
lows in reply to my communication:

“Replying to your letter of April 26, addressed to the As-

sistant in Charge; Division of Fish Culture, it is not believed
that the number of trout and other game fish consumed by

SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES 27

wild ducks amounts to much, but it is not possible to say what
damage large flocks of ducks on a preserve, of the kind you
advocate, might do if the ponds on the preserve contained an
abundance of game fish.

“The ducks valued as game (mallard, redhead, ruddy, scaups
or bluebills, canvas back, teal, etc.), feed almost entirely on
vegetation, along with occasional snails, worms, etc., and on
organisms found in mud, and would not feed on fishes to any
extent, even when other feed was scarce, as they are not adapted
to that sort of food. The ‘sawbills,’ or fish ducks, feed on fishes,
and so does the hell-diver (grebe or dabchick), which, however,
is not a duck at all. The grebes are not numerous enough to
do much harm.

“As to fishes eating ducks, the pike would commit consider-
able devastation where ducklings were available, so would
snapping turtles, their worst enemies.’’*

It is highly important that the place where wild ducks
are to be reared, either by hand or in a wild state, pref-
erably in both ways, should be safe and attractive.

A place may be said to be safe when no intruders are
permitted to approach it, either men or the natural and
domestic enemies of game, which are discussed in an-
other chapter.

It is a well known fact that wild ducks are exceedingly
fond of certain kinds of food, especially wild rice, wild
celery, wapato, a bulb-like root, fox-tail grass, and vari-
ous duck weeds and aquatic plants. As stated in the
letter of the United States Fish Commissioner, quoted
above, the ducks also feed on organisms found in mud,
and for this reason muddy ponds are attractive, as all
sportsmen know.

It is not so generally known, but nevertheless an im-
portant fact, that wild ducks need cover, almost if not
quite as much as quail, grouse and other true game birds

*The Amateur Sportsman.

28. “SABE AND ATTRACEIVE PRESERVES

do. Sportsmen who have considered this matter are
aware that wild ducks are not so often seen on open
ponds and waters, where there are no reeds, rushes or
bushes about the banks, as they are about waters where
suitable cover, in which they can hide, abounds. It is
true that there is more food, including insect food, to
be found about ponds and streams fringed with wild
rice and other grasses and bushes and trees which fur-
nish acorns and other foods and that food is the most
important matter which causes the wild fowl to visit
and remain in any given place, but it also is true that
the ducks are not well satisfied with a place which has
no covers in which they can hide, even if the food be
abundant. The wild duck when pursued by a winged
enemy will fly into the protecting reeds and rice just as
quail seek the briars when they are pursued by their
enemies.

Since there is abundant cover and much natural food
about hundreds of thousands of ponds and streams in
America, where ducks can be restored and made abun-
dant, the matter does not seem to be of great impor-
tance. But there are many ponds (in convenient loca-
tions where good duck shooting should be had) which
have neither cover nor food, and some artificial ponds
can be made on the upland preserves in order to have
the additional diversion of duck shooting. It is well,
therefore, to know how unattractive waters can be made
attractive.

Wild rice furnishes both food and cover, and this
plant easily can be introduced in many places where it
does not now occur. The methods of planting it will
be described in the chapter on the natural foods of wild

SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES 29

ducks. Cat-tails and many other reeds and rushes and
willows and briars planted about the margins of ponds
all make desirable covers, and trees which bear mast
furnish both shade and food.

In England, where much of the preserving is highly
artificial, the reeds and rushes are not always eeetee
as desirable.

Mr. De Visme Shaw says: “The great attraction to
duck is cover. It gives the birds a sense of security.
Mallard—unless kept as tame as farmyard poultry, and
not always then—can no more be expected to attach
themselves to a bare, open pond than can pheasants be
expected to make themselves at home in a locality void
of trees and undergrowth. One sees it advised that
rushes should be introduced; but, in my own opinion,
they are not only unnecessary but undesirable as well;
they eventually become a nuisance.

“As temporary cover, let stout brushwood be used,
and plenty of it. It should be thrown down roughly—
half in, half out of the water. Against the brushwood
plant strong young brambles or well rooted runners.

“Tslands which have been made in the pond are also
to have brushwood and brambles upon them. On the
north side of the pond there should be a gently shelv-
ing bank, gravelled if possible, but otherwise given a
hard surface, whereon the ducks may sun themselves
and where they are to be fed.”

Briars planted thickly a short distance from a pond
form an effective barrier against intruders, including
furry vermin and dogs and cats. The reader has ob-
served, no doubt, that ducks often frequent that part
of a water which is most difficult to approach. The

30 SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE PRESERVES

birds know well where they are safe. The intruder in
forcing his way through heavy cover must make enough
noise to warn them of his approach.

One or more small islands in a pond are especially
attractive. They can be made easily in shallow waters
and should be planted with willows or bushes to afford
Shade and cover. A low wire netting, such as is shown
in the illustrations of young mallards on the rearing
ponds, is used to turn predaceous animals, and traps
can be placed to advantage just outside of it.

The cost of making the ponds safe and attractive is
inconsiderable. The ground suitable for ducks can be
purchased or rented cheaply, and where clubs, or syn-
dicates, of sportsmen are formed to share the expense
of a gamekeeper to properly look after the fowl good
shooting can be had at a very low price per gun within
the year after the club is formed. Some of the ducks
can be trapped and held to insure a breeding stock for
the following season or the birds may be shot closely
and a new start made the following season with birds
or eggs purchased from a game farmer.

If some of the ducks and eggs be sold for propagation
or as food they should pay a good part of the cost of
production.

SIOUNIL ‘H1td ALO
WUvVd G@NVD SNVAG BOVIIVA

Vv

WEEN AND: WHERE FO PROCURE® STOCK
BIRDS AND EGGS—ENGLISH AND
AMERICAN GAME FARMS

WILD DUCK farm or preserve can be started by
purchasing eggs only and hatching them under
barnyard hens or in incubators; but it is more interest-
ing to start with ducks, and when it is proposed to rear
large numbers the first season both eggs and ducks
should be purchased.

Very quickly after the discovery was made in Eng-
land that wild ducks could be reared and controlled on
preserves a number of game farms were started, which
now furnish hundreds of thousands of ducks and eggs
to the sportsmen every year. .

Mr. Bonnett, who at my suggestion wrote a series of
articles on “English Game Preserving” for The Amateur
Sportsman, says: “Wild duck shooting became suf-
ficiently popular in England to encourage the game
farmer to give it his attention, and now there is hardly
a game farm in the Kingdom that does not pay some
attention to the breeding of wild ducks, both for eggs
and for young ducks to be supplied for shooting. A
hundred, or even fifty years ago, there would probably

$1

32 PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS

have been little demand in England for wild ducks
reared by hand, but the constant reclamation of marsh
land and the draining of the fens for agricultural pur-
poses has reduced the breeding grounds of the wild
birds very considerably, and good wild fowl shooting of
a perfectly natural kind is not easy to obtain at the pres-
ent time. All the best places are quickly snapped up.”
The same condition exists in America. The desirable
duck marshes as far West as California are now owned
or controlled largely by individuals and by duck clubs,
but there are thousands of places where ducks can be
introduced and made abundant. Mr. Bonnett mentioned
a large number of English game farmers who are en-
gaged in rearing wild ducks and stated the prices of the
birds and eggs. The price of wild ducks’ eggs from the
game farms, he says, is now about £1, 10s. to £2, 10s.
per hundred, according to season, or £12 to £20 per
thousand. These figures, of course, refer to mallards.
The prices for other species are somewhat higher.
Mr. Bonnett in concluding his article said: “There
would seem to be a big field open for the game farmer
in turning his attention to the rearing of other wild
fowl besides the ordinary duck, or mallard. Many other
kinds of fowl could doubtless be reared just as easily,
and several of them are just as handsome and sporting
birds. Among these may be mentioned the beautiful
little green runner ducks, the gorgeous shell ducks, the
widgeon and the teal as most suitable, but there are
several others that might afford sport, notably pintail,*
gadwall, shoveller, tufted duck, pochard and scaup. .

*Captain Oates writes me that pintail and teal have been tried on pre-
serves and that they do fairly well.

PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS _ 33

The industry of game farming is new in America, but
already we have a number of these interesting places,
some of which are as large as the more important game
farms in England. These can supply several species of
wild ducks and their eggs and the Canada, or common
wild goose, in good numbers and at fair prices. The
number of game farms is increasing rapidly since the
industry is profitable.

One of the largest American game farms in the United
States is located at Oak Park, Illinois (near Chicago).
Mr. Wallace Evans, the enterprising owner, has given
much attention to the rearing of several kinds of wild
fowl and can supply thousands of ducks and eggs.

In the story of his game farm* Mr. Evans said: “In
the race for ‘more game’ America has already distanced
England, the land of game farms and preserves. This
seems the more remarkable since in England there is
far more freedom in the matter of rearing and selling
game, as The Amateur Sportsman often has said, than
there is in the land of the free.” ;

Mr. Evans said that he would rear during the year
1909 8,000 pheasants, besides wood-duck, mallards and
wild geese, mandarins and other water fowl.

Wenz & Mackensen have a prosperous game farm at
Yardley, Pennsylvania, and this firm also can supply
thousands of ducks and eggs. Mr. W. A. Lucas repre-
sents the Clifton Game and Forest Society, which has
a game farm on Long Island where mallard and black
ducks are reared and sold alive for propagation.

The Whealton Wild Water Fowl Farms at Chinco-
teague, Virginia, rear thousands of ducks, geese and

*The Amateur Sportsman, September, 1909, p. 12,

34. PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS

swans. More dusky, or black, ducks are reared on this
farm than anywhere in the country. Other game farms
are located in Kansas, Missouri and Colorado. The
Fair-View Farm on Hudson, Highland, N. Y., also ad-
vertise wild ducks. In some States some of the ducks
can be sold in the market as food.

Besides the game farmers there are now a number of
large game preserves in America, some of which can, at
times, supply ducks and eggs.

The number of game farms and preserves is increas-
ing rapidly, notwithstanding the inimical laws which
prohibit the sale of game or only permit it during a
short open season. The sentiment of the people now
is opposed to the arrest of those who are engaged in
such industry and in favor of the proposed breeders’
law providing that those who properly look after game
and increase it shall have the right to sell it alive for
propagation or as food in the markets. There can be
no doubt that as soon as this law is enacted in all of the
States (it has been in some) America, as I have said,
will become the biggest game producing country in the
world. The game farms rapidly will increase in num-
ber.

The rearing methods employed by the game farmers
are similar to those described in the chapters on the
rearing and handling of wild ducks.

Wild fowl have never been regarded as true game
within the meaning of the game act in England, and
the wild fowlers, or market gunners, always have been
permitted to shoot wild ducks for the market on all
public waters, saltings, and on many lands about the
coasts owned by the Crown. Wild ducks often are

PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS = 35

cheaper in the English markets during a long open sea-
son than beef or poultry are. One of the chief merits
of field sports and of game preserving is that they tend
to keep many people in the country and furnish a de-
sirable employment for many gamekeepers. There can
be no doubt also that when game preserving is more
generally undertaken in America the market gunners
can be permitted safely to shoot on our public waters,
and there would seem to be a better excuse for this
shooting (if any apology for the killing is needed) than
there is for the shooting of those who shoot only for
sport.

Wild ducks’ eggs should be purchased very early in
the Spring, when the ducks begin to lay. The orders
should be placed in the Autumn or Winter in order to
be sure of procuring the desired number. Mallard eggs
in America are now sold for about $3 per dozen, or from
$20 to $25 per hundred. Although this is about twice
as much as the eggs cost in England, I am satisfied that
there is no economy in purchasing eggs abroad. Not
long ago I purchased a lot of eggs from an English
dealer, and, although they were securely packed and
none was broken in transit, the percentage which
hatched made the young ducks cost more than they
would have cost if they had been hatched from Ameri-
can eggs. It is fair to say, however, that the eggs were
hatched in an incubator, and they may not have been
handled just right.

The hens should be purchased or rented before the
eggs arrive. On some preserves the hens are rented
from the farms in the vicinity of the preserve; the rent
paid on a Long Island pheasant preserve is 25 cents -

36 PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS

per hen. I believe it is more economical to purchase
the hens.

Wild ducks for propagation should be purchased in
the Autumn or Winter in order that they may become
accustomed to their new surroundings; otherwise they
may not breed the first year. Birds which have been
reared in captivity are more likely to breed than freshly
caught wild birds are.

I believe it is advisable to purchase the stock ducks
from several widely separated dealers, since in this way
an admixture of blood from two or more different flocks
is secured, and this is known to be desirable in breeding
all animals.

Mallards and black ducks were sold last season (1909)
at from $3 to $3.50 per pair. Sprig-tailed ducks and teal
sold for a little more. Wood-duck brought several times
as much, but the prices undoubtedly will be lowered as
the birds become plentiful in the markets. It seems
likely that American game farmers will not be able to
supply all the sprig-tails, widgeon, teal, and other fowl
needed on the preserves next season, and it might be
well for the preserve owners to purchase some English
teal and sprig-tailed ducks. These can be procured
through the dealers I have mentioned, and they should
breed the first season provided they be purchased in
the Winter. I expect to make an experiment with these
ducks next Spring, and I would strongly advise others
to do so, since a mixed bag is desirable.

The gamekeepers say it is well to purchase ducks not
over two years old, and reliable dealers may be relied
on to send the birds ordered.

I plucked some of the feathers from one wing of the

Ie hCCU

PROCURING STOCK BIRDS: AND EGGS 37

ducks with which I made some experiments, and I pre-
fer this method of confining them to pinioning, since
the birds can fly later when the wing feathers grow in
again. I was surprised to see how rapidly the feathers
were replaced, and I plucked my ducks several times
before permitting them to fly about. On game farms
many of the stock birds are pinioned, of course. After
the birds have mated and the ducks begin to lay there
is little danger of their deserting, provided they are well
looked after and fed regularly.

In a wild state the ducks are monogamous, or nearly
so, but on the préserve one drake seems sufficient to
serve two or three ducks when they are yarded. When
the ducks are kept in flocks and have access to a large
water, Captain Oates says, there should be plenty of
drakes, say fifteen drakes to twenty ducks.

When the preserve is well situated on or near other
waters which are preserved or which are much fre-
quented by migratory birds many visitors may be ex-
pected, and often a wild bird will remain to mate with
one of the ducks on the preserve. It is desirable to pre-
vent elopements, and many gamekeepers trap the visi-
tors and pinion them.

It is an easy_matter to trap some of the visiting ducks
in a wire enclosure (built partly on the land and partly
in the water), open on the water side, where there is a
sliding door which can be dropped after the wild ducks
enter the trap, or a swinging door which will close
quickly when a catch is released. The tame ducks can
be fed daily in this enclosure, and the wilder birds will
follow into the trap, when the trapper, who controls
the door by means of a string, is well concealed.

38 PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS

The wild birds can be held by clipping their wings
or pinioning them, and soon they will become quite as
tame as those on the ground. I enjoy much seeing the
ducks up in the air, and I do not like those which cannot
fly well. It is a beautiful sight to see the flock circling
about overhead or making long flights over the sur-
rounding country when you feel sure they will return,
but there is always a danger that strangers may lure
your birds to make a longer journey than is desirable,
and for this reason it is well to control the breeding
ducks during the Spring migration and to trap enough
breeders in the Fall before the shooting begins to re-
stock the place another year. Where many birds are
induced to nest on the preserve they will more than
offset any losses that may occur, and, in fact, a few
score of breeders will supply a good lot of shooting and
also serve as decoys. Some English writers think it is
a mistake to allow any birds to breed wild, but this, of
course, means shooting of a more or less artificial char-
acter, although the hand-reared birds may often fly as
high and as fast as the wilder birds do. I prefer both
wild and hand-reared birds, but on a small shoot and
as ornaments for a country place or city park the last
named are the more suitable, since they are easily man-
aged and can be kept at home as easily as tame pigeons
can be on comparatively small areas.

There is one good thing about hand-rearing: The
birds can be multiplied rapidly, and good shooting can
be had within eight months after the start is made.
Pheasants and other upland game can be reared in the
vicinity of the duck ponds, and I have seen the pheas-
ants very abundant, breeding wild, in the marshes

PROCURING STOCK BIRDS AND EGGS 39

owned by a duck club. They were benefitted, of course,
by the protection given to the ducks.

A syndicate of sportsmen recently has been formed in
New York to propagate wild ducks on a large scale.
Skilled gamekeepers will be employed, and the upland
game will be made abundant, undoubtedly, in the vicinity
of the duck ponds. An estimate of the cost of the under-
taking will be found in the chapter on How to Form a
Duck Club.

VI
NATURAL. FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

T is an easy matter to attract wild ducks to places
where their natural foods are abundant and to hold
them, provided the grounds be made safe and the shoot-
ing be done in a manner which will not drive them
away. On the English preserves the ducks are fed
largely with grain, but there are many places in America
where their natural foods are abundant. On many de-
sirable places, however, the ducks are seldom, if ever,
seen on account of the persecution they are sure to en-
counter.

A gamekeeper is required, of course, and since the
ducks can be multiplied far more rapidly by hand-rear-
ing than they are when breeding wild, he should pro-
duce many ducks by this means in addition to the ducks
which breed in a wild state. Many plants which furnish
food for wild ducks can be introduced and grown in
places where they do not now occur, and a number of
dealers can supply wild rice and wild celery, two of the
most important foods. The principal dealers are North-
rup, King & Co., seedsmen, Minneapolis, Minnesota;
Clyde B. Terrell (R. FD. No. 5, Box 40), Oskesh;
Wisconsin, and R. B. White, Waterlily, North Carolina.

40

NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS 41

Northrup, King & Co. can supply both wild rice and
wild celery and possibly other natural foods for ducks,
and they have issued two booklets about the wild rice
and celery and how to plant them, which will be sent
free upon request. Mr. Clyde B. Terrell deals in wild
celery and issues a circular telling how to plant it, which
he will mail to anyone applying for it. R. B. White can
supply wild celery, both the seeds and the roots, and
also fox-tail grass and other foods.

The wild rice furnishes both food and cover and is a
valuable plant wherever it can be successfully grown.
Formerly there were many complaints that the wild
rice seed failed to grow when planted, but the cause for
many failures has been discovered and recently it has
been successfully introduced in many places.

Although the wild rice is regarded by many gunners
as the most important natural food for ducks, other
natural foods seem to be quite as valuable, and some of
them may be grown in places where the wild rice does
not thrive. In The Amateur Sportsman for October,
1910, I printed an interesting and instructive letter
from Dr. R. V. Pierce, who has been very successful in
introducing the fox-tail grass and several other duck
foods, but he said he had no success in raising wild rice.

The sportsmen who own shares in the duck clubs
throughout the country where no practical preserving
or hand-rearing of wild fowl is attempted long have
been interested in wild rice, wild celery, wapato and
other natural duck foods as a means of attracting the
birds to their shooting grounds, but with the growth of
practical preserves, where ducks are encouraged to re-
main and nest in a wild state and where also they are

42 NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

hand-reared in large numbers, the importance of the
natural foods has grown rapidly.

In a bulletin on “Wild Rice, Its Uses and Propaga-
tion,” issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry, United
States Department of Agriculture, we are told that by
far the largest demand for information regarding this
plant has come from men or organizations wishing to
secure viable seed for planting near shooting grounds
to attract wild fowl. In the future this information will
be sought by those who are breeding wild ducks for
sport and profit.

The bulletin referred to and a second bulletin on
“The Salt Water Limits of Wild Rice,” issued by the
same department, will be of more economic importance
and value now that the States and Provinces have be-
gun amending their game laws so as to permit the
profitable industry of game breeding. It seemed hardly
worth while for one department of the Government to
issue expensive bulletins telling the people how to pro-
duce foods for breeders when another department was
actively interested in game laws prohibiting such in-
dustry. The two bulletins above referred to contain
much information about wild rice and the best methods
for its introduction. The earlier experiments with this
plant failed, undoubtedly, because the seed was dried
before shipping and planting. It is now packed in moss
and shipped wet.

Wild ducks also are fond of mast and eagerly devour
acorns, beech nuts and other small nuts, and all of these
foods impart a fine flavor to the flesh. On preserves
where these natural foods abound, or when they are in-
troduced and made abundant, they will be found not

NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS 43

only to attract migratory fowl, but also they will reduce
the grain bill.

I recently saw hundreds of mallards on a New Jersey
preserve feeding on acorns which had fallen in a road
and on the lawn which bordered an artificial pond, and
I have often shot mallards, wood-ducks and other river
ducks, or dabblers, in the Central and Western States
when they were feeding on acorns and other mast.

On the Pacific coast the wapato is a favorite food for
wild ducks, and it has been successfully introduced in
ponds and lakes where wild ducks are properly looked
after. I am not aware of any dealer who handles this
plant or if it has been used anywhere in the Eastern
States. Mr. W. A. Howe, of Carleton, Oregon, who
owns a small farm, which has a small lake thirty acres
in extent, formerly fed the wild ducks with wheat and
in this way secured some very good shooting. In writ-
ing to The Amateur Sportsman he said: “We have
given up using wheat, as a few years ago I planted the
lake with wapato, a native bulb which thrives in all
lakes in this vicinity and of which the ducks are very
fond. In this way we have plenty of ducks for all rea-
sonable shooting and, of course, at a much less expense.
I do not know how the wapato would stand transporta-
tion. The bulb resembles a small onion and grows
freely in this country in muddy ponds and swales where
there is a foot or so of water.”

Mr. Howe informs me also that the carp, which were
introduced by the United States Fish Commissioners,
have entirely destroyed the wapato in many waters.
This undesirable fish also has destroyed the wild rice
in the Sandusky marshes, Ohio, and in many other

44 NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

places, and duck breeders should see that the carp are
not introduced in their waters or should destroy them,
if possible, in waters where the natural foods for ducks
are planted. Mr. Howe says he has no carp in his lake.

In the letter above referred to Dr. Pierce says:

“T have planted a good deal of wild celery seed, Val-
lisneria spiralis, which I have obtained from Mr. Jasper
B. White and from other individuals in different parts of
the country, with very good success. I succeeded much
better by planting the seed of the wild celery than by
planting the roots of the same, and it is much cheaper to
obtain the pods of the wild celery and plant them than
to undertake to transplant the plants. My lakes and
ponds are now quite well seeded with this plant. I have
also planted a good deal of the Potamogeton pectinatus, or
‘fox-tail grass,’ and with good success. I regard the
fox-tail grass as one of the most valuable duck foods be-
cause it seeds prolifically and, also, produces bulbs
which are much sought after by many species of ducks;
in fact, by all the species; also: by wild geese. ‘Fox-tail
grass’ spreads very rapidly. When once produced in a
duck preserve, one need have no fear of its ever running
out or failing to grow abundantly.

“T have several other species of Potamogeton which
are indigenous to my lakes and ponds, one of which is
well worthy of mention, as it is prolific in the abundance
of seeds which it produces and spreads rapidly. I refer
to the Potamogeton lucens. Potamogeton persillus also
grows to a considerable extent in my lakes and ponds
and produces considerable seed. This year a most boun-
tiful crop of water chinquapins, or Nelumbo lutea, have
made their appearance in my lakes and ponds, covering

NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS 45

many acres. It is a very interesting plant, has a beauti-
ful bloom of great fragrance and produces small nuts
abotit the size of a rather undersized acorn, of which all
classes of ducks are exceedingly fond. I have not planted
much of any variety of Polygonum, or smartweed, but
have several species growing in my duck ponds, which
the ducks seem to feed upon very much. The two species
most successful in this line are the Polygonum punctatum
and the Polygonum lapithifolum. ‘The latter is a very
large species and grows a good deal of seed, and I con-
sider it quite valuable as a duck food. A small sedge
grass grows quite freely in some of my lakes and ponds,
and is known by botanists as Cladium effusium. It is
generally distributed through the South, I believe, and is
frequently found in the gullets of ducks when examined.
I have not had any success in raising wild rice, Zizania
aquatica. I have sowed large quantities of wild rice ob-
tained from Canada and from Minnesota, and, while it
would grow to some extent, it would not mature seed.
Probably the jump in latitude was too great for it. I am
now endeavoring to obtain some wild rice grown in the
Carolinas, and hope that it may do better. Thalia
divaricata is a plant which grows on my preserve quite
extensively and is much sought after by ducks, espe-
cially mallards, who feed upon the seeds growing upon
it very freely. The plants grow from five to ten feet
high and hang full of seed of large size, and I have been
planting considerable of it as I regard it as a very valu-
able duck food. ‘Widgeon grass,’ or Rupia maratima,
grows freely in many of the lakes and ponds of St. Vin-
cent’s Island, and its seed is almost universally found in

the gullets and gizzards of ducks shot on the preserve. _

46 NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

“The foregoing are some of the most important duck
foods on my preserve and most of which can be readily
introduced with a little pains and persistency by anyone
who takes the pains and trouble necessary and has the
proper sort of environment for these plants to flourish
ine)

Mr. Whealton says: “My young and old shovellers
will eat all the tadpoles and frogs they can catch, and
their greatest activity is shown in the pursuit of such
prey.

“In regard to the food of wild ducks not in captivity, I
will state that our bay, Chincoteague Bay, about six miles
wide and extending northward over forty miles, has its
shallow bottoms covered with various aquatic plants,
mostly ‘ell grass,’ as our people call it, and this is the
chief food of our wild geese, brant and ducks. The red-
heads and scaups feed after the geese to get the grass
which the former pull up from the bottom. The black,
mallard, sprig-tail and teal eat, in addition to the salt
water plants and grasses, or rather, the grasses of the
brackish or partly fresh water of the upper bay, the
special duck grass that grows in the fresh and partly
fresh water ponds of our marshes and on our islands,
ete =

An English writer recently said that on a large num-
ber of estates both in England and in Wales there is
swampy land that is useless to the farmer and under
its present condition is worse than useless for shooting.
This land can be made most valuable to the sporting

*Letter to the author. Dr. Pierce and Mr. Whealton have had excel-
lent opportunities to study the food habits of wild ducks, and I am much
indebted to them for assistance in the preparation of this chapter.

NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS 47

tenant with a small cost. First, he says, it should be
fenced with large mesh netting to keep out hunting
dogs. Second, open some pools in the most convenient
and quietest parts. In these place some boxes contain-
ing soil and plant watercress in the boxes. Nail some
netting over the tops. This will prevent the cress from
washing out. Place the boxes in the pools; there the
cress will grow and seed and soon establish good beds
of cress. Third (and most important), get some wil-
lows in variety, and plant these at a distance of three
or four feet apart. Insert pieces about three and a half
feet long in the ground; these in a few years will treble
the cost of planting and the wild fowl will have places
in which to feed and to breed. The shooting will be
greatly improved, for if a few duck were pinioned on
these places the wild birds will breed and rear their
broods in safety. The willows can be cut every year or
two. Firms who make baskets will buy them.

Wild ducks require very little water, and they will
frequent and breed beside very small ponds, provided
they find an abundance of food and safe quarters. If
the ducks are abundant they should, of course, be fed
at least one meal of grain daily, and the best time to
feed this is late in the day, since feeding at this time
tends to prevent their straying. Some interesting ex-
periments with wild ducks can be made, inexpensively,
on thousands of farms in America which now contain
worthless swamps and boggy places.

In addition to the plant foods, the ducks devour many
insects during the Summer, and they procure about the
ponds and streams much animal food, such as snails,
worms, and small organisms found in mud. Many of

48 NATURAL FOODS OF WILD DUCKS

the ducks, undoubtedly, may take small fish when they
cannot obtain other food, but, as I observed in a former
chapter, they prefer a vegetable diet, and their flesh is
much better for the table when they are feeding on
grain, mast and the plants named above

VII
ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS

HERE ducks are artificially reared they should be
induced to nest in safe enclosures, wired against
vermin. The nesting ground should be a grassy field,
shaded on one or more sides by trees, which also give
shelter from cold winds. The nesting places usually
are made of brush arranged to form little shelters
over the nests. On some preserves the nests and
sheltering covers are very elaborately made, but on the
preserves where I have seen thousands of ducks the
nests were simply protected by small brush stood up
in a conical form with an entrance at one side for the
duck.

Captain Oates says: “Ducks love to nest in stacks,
and I have known a pinioned bird to work her way up
the side of a stack and make her nest fifteen feet from
the ground. -In stacks birds can burrow so deep that
no weather, however inclement, can damage the eggs.
Outhouses, too, are very favorite places for ducks to
lay in; also old stick heaps and the bottom of thick
hedges.”

On a Long Island preserve I saw ducks nesting be-
side an overturned stump among the roots and on a

49

50 ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS

preserve in North Carolina many ducks nested on the
bank of a small stream, often under the projecting roots
of trees or beside a log.

It is an easy matter, and an important one, to induce
the ducks to lay their eggs within a field which is wired
against ground vermin. The fence is made of chicken
wire and is run into the ground, and the wire is turned
outward underground so that any rat, or other vermin,
will not be able to enter the field. Traps are placed out-
side the fence and always beside any holes where ver-
min has been digging.

No one had any success in rearing the young ducks
in England until the proper food for them was discov-
ered. This was invented and made by a well known
dealer in foods for pheasants and poultry, and duck rear-
ing at once became common on the preserves and on
many game farms.

A number of excellent wild duck meals are now manu-
factured in England and in America, and the best of
these may be obtained from the Spratt’s Patent (Am.)
Limited, Newark, New Jersey, or from at least one game
farmer, Mr. Wallace Evans, of Oak Park, [llinois.

Since young ducks live largely on insects, it was nec-
essary to provide some animal matter in the food. The
gamekeepers, however, quickly transfer the young
ducks to a grass field after they are hatched, where they
can secure some insects, the more the better, no doubt,
and the coops in which the hens are confined are moved
from day to day in order to give the young birds fresh
ground and a better chance to secure insect food. Mr.
Whealton writes:

“I feed all my young wild geese, ducks and swan, from

GQNNOUD DONIYVEAY NO GHHSNITHA SaAUVTIVIN

ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS 51

the first day they-are hatched until ready for adult fare,
on coarse yellow cornmeal alone, and the food I use most
exclusively for all adult wild fowl is corn—corn in the
whole grain, rarely the cracked form—and this fare I
have adopted after many years of experiment with vari-
ous mixtures of grain, wild duck feed, et hoc genus omne.

“T should add that I do not confine any of the young
wild fowl, but let them go with the parent birds to forage
for themselves, and no doubt they greatly supplement
the ration I give them with the many kinds of insect life
and the seeds, leaves and roots of the various forms of
land and aquatic grasses and plants that abound in my
enclosures. The Canada goslings begin nibbling grass
certainly by the second day of their existence and do not
seem inclined to take to the water as early as the young
ducks and cygnets, which almost roll out of the egg
shell into the water and begin swimming on their natal
day.

“The cygnets of the Black Australian swan as well as
the adults themselves are foragers par excellence in all
seasons, as the young of these erratic but wonderfully
prolific breeders are hatched out as often in midwinter as
in midsummer. The young black ducks seem to derive
a great amount of satisfaction as well as nutriment from
the ooze and mud of the banks and shallow bottoms,
which they industriously sift through their bills, while
the adults are almost omnivorous, eating all kinds of
roots, grasses, seeds, flies, insects, minnows, crustacea,
etc. (I have opened the craws of those killed on our
marshes and found them full of periwinkles swallowed
whole.) Gourmands, these fellows, with wonderful pow-
ers of digestion.”

52: ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WIELD DUCKS

The reader should remember Mr. Whealton’s state-
ment that his young birds are not confined and supple-
ment the cornmeal ration, which he feeds, with many
kinds of insect life and the seeds, leaves and roots of
various land and aquatic grasses and plants, “which
abound in his enclosures.” The English writers and
gamekeepers regard the duck meal as essential where the
ducks do not secure the supplemental foods mentioned.
I have records of many thousands of ducks which were
reared, almost without any loss, on the prepared duck
meal.

Ducks are now reared even more easily than pheas-
ants are, and the young birds seem less subject to dis-
eases.

At one time the small bantams were regarded as the
best foster-mothers for pheasants and ducks, but the
common barnyard fowls of all breeds are now regarded
as good as any; the most docile hens and those which
are the more easily handled at the feeding time are
better than hens which are wild and unruly, since the
last named break the eggs. Duck eggs are more fragile
than the eggs of poultry.

At a duck preserve in New Jersey, where I spent some
time studying the gamekeeper’s art, the sitting hens are
placed in boxes which are built inside of a hatching
house (see illustration) extending from the floor nearly
to the low ceiling. The hens are tested on eggs until it
is ascertained that they will sit steadily, when some of the
duck eggs, which have been gathered in large numbers,
are placed under them.

The eggs when they are gathered are placed on end
in a tray containing bran, sawdust, hay or other suit-

wey PIT 0% INO sud Zulyey, isdseyemry
GHSNOH DNIHOLVH AO HOIMALNI

ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS 53

able material. They are turned daily and will remain
fertile for several weeks, during which time they are
placed under the hens or in incubators.

From ten to fifteen eggs can be hatched under a com-
mon hen, but it is well not to have too many, since the
hen may not cover them all. Mr. De Visme Shaw says
let the clutch number no more than seven if the hen is
set in cold weather, and in no case more than ten. I
am inclined to believe that most hens can handle a
dozen eggs, in proper nests, nicely, but the breeder can
learn by experimenting just what his hens can do.
When the eggs are abundant and the hens scarce it is
well to put them to their full capacity. Captain Oates
advises making the clutch twelve eggs for hens and
thirteen for ducks, and, he says, five of his ducks
hatched no fewer than sixty-five ducklings. He ad-
vises leaving two or three eggs in each nest when the
eggs are gathered.

The first few eggs laid often are infertile, and these
may be marked and left in the nest to encourage the
duck to continue laying. Wild ducks will lay many
more eggs than they can hatch. When the eggs are
removed, after enough eggs for one or two clutches
have been gathered, the duck should be permitted to sit
and hatch a brood.

In an article written for The Amateur Sportsman,
Captain Oates says one should get from twenty to
thirty-three eggs per duck each season. He has even
done much better than this at times. “Some years ago,”
he says, “I tried an experiment and turned into a small
enclosure two pure bred wild ducks which I had reared
from wild eggs, and also a wild drake which I had cap-

54 ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS

tured. I fed these birds myself and also collected the
eggs daily. No one else was permitted to enter the
pen. The result was surprising. I obtained 119 eggs
between February 21 and June 1. I was most particu-
lar in giving the birds a flower pot full of worms each
day. On two different occasions three eggs were laid
in one day. An account of this extraordinary occur-
rence was sent to the Field (London), and it was
pointed out by me that it was impossible for other
birds to enter and lay in the pen and that the eggs were
collected on the days before and after the occurrence.
Further, the eggs were those of the two birds men-
tioned, their shape and color exactly coinciding with
those previously laid. However, I do not advise con-
fining the birds in any way; give them plenty of liberty
and the eggs will be fertile and the hatching percent-
age a high one.”

Elliot says the mallard breeding wild usually lays
only six eggs, and the reader will observe how much
more rapidly the wild ducks are increased in numbers
on the preserve than they are when breeding wild. One
or two hundred ducks should easily produce from two
to four thousand young birds, and even more if the
average of thirty-three, named by Captain Oates, should
be attained.

The nests in the hatching boxes shown in the illus-
tration are made of a heavy sod from which the earth
has been partly removed in the middle so that it will
become concave when it is placed in the box.

Oates says to use any square box of sufficient depth
and, having cut some pieces of sod, build.up the cor-
ners of the box with them; then cut a square sod to fit

ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS 55

the size of the box and, having removed some of the
earth underneath the center of the sod, place it, grass
upwards, in the box. Line the nest with dry moss.

Mr. De Visme Shaw favors placing the nests on the
ground. The sitting hens and ducks should be fed on
corn or other grain, and the hen should be taken off
and fed and watered daily.

When the duck starts to sit, if she has not enough
eggs the nest can be filled up from the eggs which have
been previously gathered. It has been recorded in the
Shooting Times and British Sportsman that a duck will
dispose of an egg or two if she thinks she has too many,
and Captain Oates says upon one occasion when one
of his ducks was sitting on fifteen eggs a friend on
whose veracity he could rely, saw the duck fly from her
nest, close to where he was standing, with an egg in her
bill. She flew to the water about 150 yards away, ap-
parently without breaking the egg; but, unfortunately,
his friend could not get up in time to see what she did
with it. She hatched out the rest of her eggs satis-
factorily.*

Since the wild duck returns to her nest with her
feathers wet after being on the water, the wild duck
eggs should be sprinkled occasionally with tepid water
when they are hatched under hens. This should be done
effectively as the time for hatching approaches. |

Mr. De Visme Shaw advises that on the twenty-fifth
day the eggs and nest be removed and that a quart or
more of water be poured into the nesting box, allowing

*Captain W. Coape Oates’ “Wild Ducks.” For breeding periods of the
different species breeding wild, see Audubon Am. Ornith.; Wilson Ornith. ;
Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, N. A. M. Birds; Appendix.

56 ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS

the liquid to be thoroughly absorbed by the earth be-
fore putting back the nest and eggs. This might do
when nests are made on the ground, as Mr. Shaw ad-
vises, but less water should be used when the nest is
made on a sod in a box. A thorough sprinkling of the
eggs and a little water on the sod is all that is re-
quired.

The earlier experiments in hatching wild duck eggs in
incubators were failures, since the fact that the duck
eggs need moisture was overlooked. More recent ex-
periments have been more successful when the eggs
have been sprinkled with tepid water. I succeeded in
hatching some eggs (which I imported from England)
in an electric incubator. These eggs were thoroughly
sprinkled as the hatching time approached.

Ducks’ eggs take from twenty-four to twenty-nine
days to hatch, as a rule, though occasionally a lot of
eggs that have been put down soon after being laid will
hatch in twenty-three days, if placed under a good hen.
Twenty-six days may be said to be the usual period of
incubation.

Wild ducks should not be permitted to interbreed with
tame ducks.

The Shooting Times and British Sportsman says:

“Any reader who possesses a stock of real wild duck
has a valuable thing, which he may turn to good account.
Those stocks which have been hand-reared for the last
ten years have become so impregnated with domestic
blood as to be practically useless for first-rate sport, be-
~cause they neither can nor will fly high. A real wild
duck rarely associates with the domestic varieties, and,
as far as we have been able to ascertain, never interbreeds

‘SyOnd suRy, s1e s19aqjo
aq} {SPABI[VIT 2B SpAIq JayIwp oy, “AOyInNW oy} AG puL[sug MOAZ poytodm a19M Sosa oT,

MUOA MON NI ALIOIMGTOET AG GHLVANONI SMONdG ONNOA

ARTIBIGIAL REARING: OF WILD *DUGKS ‘57

with them,* but his partially tame brother has no such re-
luctance, and if the two kinds are near each other it is
difficult to keep them apart. Game farmers are also guilty
of infusing domestic blood, for they have found that a
stock of duck having such an infusion were easier to pen
and manage, and the larger size of the birds they thought
would appeal to their patrons. However, what is the use
of a bigger duck if it refuses to fly, for the primary motive
with which they are reared is to provide sport, and size
and quality is quite a secondary consideration. The true
wild duck is a delicious bird on the table, and the slight-
est introduction of domestic blood appears to destroy its
peculiar piquant flavor.

“At the present time there is a great desire in shooting
circles, where the hand-reared duck as a sporting bird is
appreciated, to revert to the true stock, and thoroughly
stamp out the halfbreeds. This is why we declare that
he who has a true stock holds a valuable possession, for
the eggs are likely in the near future to command a big
price. There is no mistaking the egg of the real wild
duck, its shape being perfect and its delicate coloring of
pale sea green unapproachable. The slightest infusion
of domestic blood appears to rob it of these character-
istics, and the egg laid by a bird possessing such blood in
ever so small a degree becomes larger in size, and the
green gives place to a dirty white. The first, and even
second, nest of eggs laid by a wild duck may be picked up
for sale, and she will lay again, possibly only half a dozen
on the third occasion, but they will be as fertile as those
produced earlier, and the ducklings will be hatched at a

*This statement seems to be erroneous. In America the wild mallard
often interbreeds with tame ducks.

58 ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS

season when they are easily reared. There will thus be
about two dozen eggs available for sale.”

On Long Island, N. Y., and elsewhere about the At-
lantic coast there are many half-bred ducks which can fly
fairly well, but the reader should insist that the ducks
purchased for a preserve have no infusion of domestic
blood. It is most desirable to have birds which will fly
high and fast.

VIII
YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD

HEN the young ducks are hatched they should be
removed, with their foster-mother, to a grassy
field, wired against vermin, the hen being confined in a
coop such as is used when young chickens are reared.
The young ducks are allowed to run about by day, and
the coop is closed, by a sliding door made of wire, at
night. The coop should be placed facing the sun, and
it is wise to have a windbreak behind it to keep cold
winds from the little ducks early in the season. The
birds should not be moved to the field until they are
quite dry and lively—when they are about one day old.
The ducklings require hardly anything to eat or drink
during the first twenty-four hours after they are hatched.
They, no doubt, will spend their time under the hen.
They should be fed at first on a little duck meal scalded
and placed on a plate or pan outside the coop. A little
of the food can be scattered in the grass and within the
coop to attract their attention, but it is not wise to con-
tinue feeding them anything inside the coop for sani-
tary reasons. The hen, of course, should be fed and
watered at least twice daily.
The young ducks should be fed very early in the
59

60 YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD

morning, and often during the day for the first two
weeks. Only a little food should be given at a time, and
not more than they will eat, since it is not desirable to
have stale food about.

Mr. De Visme Shaw says young wild ducks will do
well if fed as their domesticated relatives are usually
fed; but they do better, and this with less trouble to
their attendant, if raised from the shell on food specially
adapted to them—such as Gilbertson & Page’s largely
used wild duck meal—the special food containing a cor-
rect proportion of animal matter.

Mr. Edgar, one of the most successful gamekeepers
in America, whose ducks are pictured in several of my
illustrations, uses exclusively the duck food sold by the
Spratt’s Patent, Limited, of Newark, New Jersey, and
he has had remarkable success in rearing his young
ducks.

Until the ducks are about fourteen days old they
should be fed at intervals of from two to three hours,
daily, the first feed being given as soon after daybreak
as possible. From this age until they are about a month
old the intervals between feeding times should be about
four hours. A fortnight later three meals a day are
sufficient.

I fed a lot of young dusky ducks (black ducks) with
scraps from the table. They usually had some oatmeal,
force or other cereal in the morning, and they ate bread
and vegetables. Often when one had a meat bone the
others would chase him about the yard just as chickens
often chase the one which has secured a bit of food of
any kind. Early one Sunday morning they devoured all
the rolls left by the baker.

YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD 61

It was not long before my ducks discovered the
kitchen garden, which was some distance from the
house and from the yard where they were fed. They
daily made excursions to the garden, usually on foot,
sometimes on the wing, and in order to learn what they
liked I permitted them to do considerable damage. They
were fond of lettuce. This was the first plant they en-
countered as they entered the garden, and I do not recall
anything which they did not sample liberally. They
were very fond of cucumbers, and in one afternoon they
devoured several hundred young cucumbers, which were
to have been made into pickles the following day. They
destroyed watermelons, which were nearly ripe, cutting
them in two with their bills and greedily devouring the
fruit, eating very close to the rind. Several ducks’ heads
were crowded into the big half melons at one time, and
there was soon nothing left save a thin green shell.

As the ducks passed the sweet corn they jumped up
and plucked at the ears, sometimes taking a little corn
from a cob and passing on and at other times pulling
down a stalk and eating the young grain more freely.
Like chickens, they destroyed more than they ate.

When I sent my setters out after the ducks the dogs
often made a detour and, circling about, pointed the
ducks from the side of the garden farthest from the
house. As the dogs drew up close, the ducks would take
wing and fly to the kitchen door, where they knew they
were safe. These ducks, of course, were too tame, but
they seemed to be much wilder when away from home.
They made excursions to a bay a mile from the house
and often were gone for hours.

I have no doubt that a patch of cucumbers and melons

62 YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD

planted near a pond on the preserve and allowed to run
wild would prove especially attractive to the ducks and
that it would not only tend to keep them at home, but
out of mischief. Since wild ducks fly well the ordinary
wire about a garden, used to keep chickens out, would
be no barrier to them, but some plan should be devised
to keep them out of gardens when they are reared on
country places. Probably my ducks were not fed
enough. If they are not permitted to become too tame
it would be an easy matter to scare the ducks away and
to let them know that the place was not safe, and by
providing some similar green foods in more accessible
and safer places they, no doubt, could be taught to stay
out of the garden.

The English duck preservers and gamekeepers all ad-
vise that ducks reared under hens be not taken to the
water until they are seven or eight weeks old. They
should have water to drink in shallow pans and plenty
of it. It is well to put some sand in the water and to
scatter sand and fine grit about where the ducks can
always find plenty of these necessary materials. The
young ducks are infatuated with the water, and the the-
ory is that without an aquatic mother to regulate their
bathing and to lead them out at the proper time the
ducklings stay in too long, like some human youngsters.
Young ducks are liable to become chilled after being in
the water too long, and they are subject to cramp. It is
for this reason that all the authorities, including the
gamekeepers, who are the best authorities, agree that it
is best to keep young ducks which are reared under hens
out in the field and away from any water until they are
at least seven or eight weeks old.

eAIesoIg AeSief MON ¥B UO spaE[R sunox
HAIL DHNNIG

YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD — 63

Mr. De Visme Shaw says the young of wild ducks are
as subject, or almost as subject, to cramp as are those
of their domestic relatives, and the same care in keeping
them from water must be exercised. Whatever kind of
vessel be used, it should give the birds easy access to
the water for drinking purposes, while at the same time
preventing them from wetting their down. He recom-
mends a framework made in the shape of a gardener’s
hand-light and covered with galvanized netting—the
cover being placed over a shallow earthenware baking
dish—a most satisfactory contrivance.*

The brood of ducks in charge of a duck should, of
course, be left to her management. She will take them
out on the pond for a short swim, and it is a beautiful
sight to see the mother with her troop of cute little duck-
lings swimming behind her, or often in advance, the last
named no bigger than tennis balls. The proud matron
will make the excursions short at first and will soon have
the young birds out on a sunny bank and often under her
warm body.

Ducks are fond of seeking the shade, especially in the
afternoon, when they usually take a doze. About 4
o’clock they begin to move about, afoot or awing. I
often observed my ducks dozing in the shade of the
house or trees, but at 4 o’clock promptly they marched
forth, usually to raid my garden. As they passed my
studio window I often called to the children to ascertain
the time, asking them if it was 4 o’clock. The ducks
were very accurate.

The coops should be moved a few feet daily to give
the young ducks fresh ground for their feeding places.
"Wild Fowl.” By De Visme Shaw.

64 YOUNG DUCKS ON REARING FIELD

The young ducks are very fond of flies, grasshoppers,
and other insects, and the more of this food they can
obtain the better. Captain Oates says his young ducks
ate bees alive without ill effects.

When the ducks are two or three weeks old they may
have some wheat or cracked corn, which should be
served wet or placed in the water. Barley and corn may
be added to their bill of fare a few weeks later. When
eight or nine weeks old (the time depending on the
weather) the ducks are taken to the water, and then
they can be fed on grain only. Cracked corn is, prob-
ably, the best food. They will procure a variety of green
foods, insects and much other food of various kinds
about the pond or lake.

In places where wild rice, acorns and the other natu-
ral foods are plentiful the ducks will require very little
feeding. One meal of grain a day should be sufficient to
hold them.

IX
YOUNG DUCKS ON THE POND

| the young ducks are taken to the water, after
they are eight weeks old, the danger of losses due
to disease and to certain kinds of vermin may be said to
have passed. All animals thrive best when given much
liberty, and the young ducks should grow rapidly in
their new surroundings. They should, of course, be
properly looked after and protected from vermin, and
they should be fed at first two or three times daily with
wheat or cracked corn, to which may be added a little of
the prepared duck meal, the amount depending upon the
amount of natural food they may be able to procure
about the pond.

The place where they are turned down should be a
grassy field, sloping to the pond, with some willows or
other trees at a little distance from the water.

The field may be wired to keep out stray dogs, cats,
and rats and other vermin, and the wire may be ex-
tended to include some water in the pond. By feed-
ing, the ducks can be taught to use this safe field, al-
though they will fly out and explore the pond and often
the country in the vicinity. Ducks are great wanderers,
unless they be kept too tame for sport, and they may

65

66 YOUNG. DUCKSON @HAEVEOND

take a flight to some water at a distance from home, but
they will be sure to return at the feeding time, or if
alarmed, and if a horn or dog whistle be used and sound-
ed before they are fed they will learn to come to the
sound.

I discovered this fact by accident and have since seen
it mentioned in the English magazines. Some dusky
ducks which I reared in my yard were always on the
lookout at feeding time and often came to the kitchen
door and made loud demands for my appearance. I
used to feed some setters there and in order to teach
them to come at the sound of the whistle I often blew it
just before feeding them. The ducks quickly associated
the sound of the whistle with my appearance with the
food, and often flew swiftly to the doorway and took
the food I threw down for the dogs before the last
named arrived. These birds were quite tame, of course,
and were not afraid of me or of the dogs, but they could
fly well and often explored the country round about and
went out to a bay a mile distant, as I have said, where
they remained for hours and took their chances of being
shot in the open season. I feared they had gone for good
the first time they went away. They were much tamer
than ducks should be kept on a game preserve.

It is a singular fact, which seems almost incredible,
that ducks which are tame in the presence of their owner
or in a locality where they know they are safe, often will
be as wild as any wild ducks when a stranger appears or
when they are on dangerous waters.

Mr. Charles C. Townsend, of Colorado, wrote the fol-
lowing story about some wild ducks for Mr. Shields, the
editor of Shields’ Magazine, which well illustrates this

GMVI OL ONINUALEY SGUVITVN ONOOA—UANNIG UALAV

YOUNG DUCKS ON THE POND 67

point: “One mile north of the little village of Moses,
Colorado,” he says, “lives the family of J. C. Gray. On
the Gray ranch there is an artesian well which empties
into a small pond about 100 feet square. This pond is
never entirely frozen over, and the water emptying there-
in is warm, even during the coldest winter.

“Some five years ago Mr. Gray secured a few wild
duck eggs and hatched them under a hen. The little
ducks were reared and fed on the pond. The following
spring they left the place to return in the fall, bringing
with them broods of young; also bringing other ducks
to the home where protection was afforded them and
plenty of food was provided. Each year since the ducks
have scattered in the Spring to mate and rear their fami-
lies, returning again with greatly increased numbers in
the fall and again bringing strangers to the haven of
refuge.

“T drove out to the ranch, November 24, 1902, and
found the little pond almost black with birds and was
fortunate enough to secure a picture of a part of the
pond when the ducks were thickly gathered thereon.
Ice had formed around the edges, and this ice was cov-
ered with ducks. The water was also alive with others,
which paid not the least attention to the party of stran-
gers on the shore. From Mr. Gray I learned that there
were some 600 ducks of various kinds on the pond at
that time, though it was then early for them to seek
Winter quarters. Later in the year, he assured me, there
would be between 2,000 and 3,000 teal, mallards, canvas
backs, redheads and other varieties, all perfectly at home
and fearless of danger. The family have habitually ap-
proached the pond from the house, which stands on the

68 YOUNG DUCKS ON THE POND

south side, and should any person appear on the north
side of the pond the ducks immediately take fright and
flight. Wheat was strewn on the ground and in the wa-
ter, and the ducks waddled around us within a few
inches of our feet, paying not the least attention to us
or to the old house dog which walked near.

“Six miles east of the ranch is San Luis Lake, to
which these ducks travel almost daily while the lake is
open. When they are at the lake it is impossible to ap-
proach within gunshot of the then timid birds. Some
unsympathetic boys and men have learned the habits of
the birds and place themselves in hiding along the course
of flight to and from the lake. Many ducks are shot in
this way, but woe to the person caught firing a gun near
the home pond. When away from home the birds are as
wild as other wild ducks and fail to recognize any mem-
bers of the Gray family, while at home they follow the
boys around the barnyard, squawking for food like so
many tame ducks.

“This is the greatest sight I have ever witnessed and
one that I could not believe existed until I had seen it.
Certainly it is worth traveling many miles to see.”

The following accounts of wild ducks in Florida and
elsewhere, with the remarkable picture of ducks at Lake
Worth, which was sent to me by Dr. Dutcher, the dis-
tinguished President of the National Association of
Audubon Societies, also illustrates this peculiarity of
wild ducks.

The picture was published by the Association in an
educational leaflet and Mr. Forbush, who wrote it, says:
“At Titusville, Florida, where no shooting is allowed
near the hotel or wharves, the wild ducks from the river

VI HOiUomM OMVI GY SMONG IIA

YOUNG DUCKS ON THE POND 69

become so tame that they swim about among the boats
like domesticated fowl and will even come out on the
lawn near the hotel. These same ducks when out on the
river beyond the ‘dead line’ are as wild as the wildest.

“At Lake Worth, Florida, the same conditions prevail,
and the scaup ducks swimming in the lake become so
confiding that they may be fed from the hand. In the
ponds of the Middlesex Fells reservation, near Boston,
Massachusetts, where gunning is prohibited, the black
ducks have greatly increased, and some now nest in the
vicinity of Boston.

“When the State of New York first prohibited Spring
shooting, breeding black ducks were rare on Fisher’s
Island. A few years later there was good shooting on
the island each Fall because of the ducks that were
reared there. Dr. Shaw, who was rearing wild ducks
near New Bedford, Massachusetts, asked the farmers
near his place to post their land and prevent shooting as
a means of protecting his ducks from poachers. This
was done, and within two years wild black ducks began
breeding on the farms all about.”

A friend of mine who reared some wild mallards near
a pond in Maine informed me that one of his wild ducks
came in the house. These ducks could fly well, and
some of them were shot when on a visit to a neighbor-
ing lake. Ducks on a preserve often are quite tame in
the presence of their gamekeeper, but take wing when
a stranger approaches. This is as it should be. I was
talking with a gamekeeper one day, at Allamuchy, New
Jersey, when some of his ducks came in, flying high over
the tree tops. They headed to the wind and were de-
scending to the little pond by which we were standing,

70 YOUNG: DUCKS ON WHE FOND

when they discovered my presence, and with loud
squawks climbed high in the air and soon were out of
sight. “They will come back all right,” said their
keeper.

Many wild ducks now are bred in the New York
Zoological Park and in Central Park, New York. These
birds have learned that they are safe in the presence of
visitors to the parks, and, although they fly about and
some, no doubt, desert, they are easily approached.
Wild ducks which visit ducks on the preserves soon be-
come comparatively tame in the presence of the game-
keeper. The danger is not that the ducks will be so
wild as to desert when they are properly looked after
but that they may become too tame for sport. They
should be shot, as we shall observe later, when they are
away from the pond where they are fed.

PIN-TAIL EGGS

WILD DUCKS IN CENTRAL PARK
Photograph by the Author

D4
THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME

HE natural enemies of game birds collectively are

termed vermin by the gamekeepers. It is a singu-

lar fact that the word ‘“‘vermin” was almost unknown in

America and was rarely, if ever, used in our sporting

literature until I wrote a paper on ‘““Game Bird Enemies”

for The Independent, which was published March 5,
1908.

One of the chief causes for the rapid disappearance of
our game is that it cannot stand the ravages of vermin
and shooting at the same time. The word vermin often
is used in the English sporting magazines and books,
and the importance of controlling the enemies of game
in order to make a place for the shooting often is dis-
cussed. “To destroy vermin is to preserve game” is a
familiar English maxim, and the gamekeepers know that
they cannot preserve vermin and game on the same field
and show good shooting.

Dr. D’Arcy I. Hamilton says: “To show a good head
of game on an estate the place must. be cleared of ver-
min, and there is no time like the close time for this.
The professional keeper knows this and knows how to
accomplish it.”

1

72 THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME

Mr. Owen Jones, an Oxford graduate who selected
gamekeeping as his profession, says: “ “Let the keeper
look after the vermin and the game will look after itself,’
is a saying which has stood the test of time. There is
no more interesting phase of a keeper’s work than the
circumvention of vermin. Dull indeed would it be on a
shoot where there is absolutely no vermin; one might as
well use a gun which mechanically prevented missing.
Though I had to do a lot of game shooting, I enjoyed
the all around sport with vermin better. Often have I
thought that I would like to get a keeper’s berth where
vermin teemed. I do not mean a place swarming with
rats and rooks, but holding a good old fashioned stock
of all sorts of vermin.”*

The naturalists are right, no doubt, in saying that
many species of vermin are beneficial and that they do
not do as much harm as some gamekeepers imagine they
do. Laws, however, which prohibit the killing of game
enemies should not apply to game farms and preserves.
The matter of the control of harmful species should be
left to the game breeder. It would be quite as logical to
say that the shepherd must not kill the wolves which de-
stroy his flocks as it is to say that the breeder of game
must not control the enemies which kill his game.

We should remember that it is easy to distinguish
what game enemies are injurious and that it is not neces-
sary or even possible to absolutely destroy even the most
harmful species. This I regard as fortunate, since I enjoy
seeing an occasional sly fox about and the graceful fal-
con sailing overhead or striking his quarry. It is an easy

*“Ten Years of Game Keeping.” By Owen Jones. London, Edwin
Arnold, 1909. Longmans, Green & Co., New York.

THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME 73

matter to make game so abundant that some of it can be
spared to feed an occasional enemy.

There is no other cause for the decrease of the wild
fowl, which is of more importance to American sports-
men than their destruction by vermin, excepting, of
course, the draining of the ponds and marshes, which
amounts to a total annihilation in the places which are
drained.

The relation of the game to its natural enemies and
the laws which govern nature’s balance are well under-
stood by game preservers. Game preserving is highly
scientific. Without it evidently it is certain, in America,
that we cannot have good shooting save in the more un-
settled regions. When we undertake it there can be no
doubt that the game can be kept abundant in the most
densely populated regions, although thousands of birds
be shot every year. This has been proven in England
everywhere and in many places in the United States
where the experiment has been tried.*

All forms of life, it is well known, tend to increase
with such great rapidity that a very few of any species
soon would increase so as to overrun the earth were it
not for the many natural checks to their increase. Dar-
win says: “Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction
ever so little and the number of the species will almost
instantaneously increase to any amount.”

The converse of Darwin’s proposition equally is true.
When we add to the checks to the increase of game

*The best examples of game abundance on the upland are the quail
preserves of North Carolina and the pheasant preserves of New Eng-
land, New York, New Jersey, ete. There are a number of wild duck
preserves in New England, New York and New Jersey, where wild fowl
have been restored and made abundant.

74 THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME

“ever so little’ we must expect the number of the species
to decrease, and the proposition has been proven in
America as conclusively as Darwin’s statement has been
proven in England. Our game has vanished because we
have added an important check to its increase—shoot-
ing—without first removing some of the natural checks
to its increase to make a place for the shooting. The Eng-
lish gamekeepers have removed the check to increase—
vermin—as far as possible, and the guns shoot thousands
of birds every year without causing a diminution in the
number of the species.

The English sportsmen leave a remnant of game every
year to restock the fields, just as vermin, under natural
conditions, leaves a remnant for restocking, but in
America we shoot the remnant and wonder why our
thousand or more game laws don’t work.

When any species of game becomes reduced in num-
bers and its natural enemies hold their own or become
more numerous, the last named, evidently, are super-
abundant when compared with the game, and as a result
of such conditions the game must decrease in numbers,
even in the absence of any shooting. It survives with
difficulty if it survives at all. The birds which survive
often change their habits and become extremely wary,
and they may, in time, show an increase, since it is a diff-
cult matter absolutely to destroy any species. Ruffed
grouse and quail have responded to laws _ prohibiting
shooting for a term of years, and they have increased in
numbers in many localities, but not in all. It is evident
that the laws cannot restore them in counties where they
have become extinct. It also is evident that they must
again become scarce when shooting is resumed. The

THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME 75

prairie grouse no longer occur in hundreds of counties
where once they were tremendously abundant, and the
wild ducks are never seen on thousands of ponds and
small lakes and streams where the shooting was fine a
few years ago. The wild ducks cannot nest and success-
fully rear their young beside waters which are overrun
with trespassers, and dogs, cats and rats, in addition to
their natural enemies, which are sufficient to check their
too rapid increase and to preserve nature’s balance.

Even in Great Britain, where preserves are numerous,
it has been found impossible to entirely exterminate ver-
min, and a continual war is waged against game enemies.
The idea that it is not necessary or desirable to exter-
minate all vermin seems to be gaining ground. The Rev.
H. A. Macpherson, a good game preserver and writer on
field sports, has well said, “Vermin should not be ex-
tirpated root and branch, but common sense requires
that they should be kept within reasonable numerical
limits.” Referring to a statement of an observer that he
counted the remains of over thirty grouse under the
branches of a large fir, which had been killed by a kite,
Dr. Macpherson says: “Sorry should I be to do an in-
jury to a British kite. But our personal feelings must
not be allowed to overpower our better judgment, and
the preservation of rapacious birds, however desirable
from a scientific or philosophical standpoint, possesses
some distinct drawbacks for game preservers.”’

A good rule to follow is to control the natural ene-
mies of game only when they appear to be doing serious
damage. A hawk trap recently has been invented in
England which captures the hawks alive. The hawks
which do very little damage and which are regarded as

76 THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME

beneficial birds can be released and the worst species
destroyed.

Mr. Owen Jones, gamekeeper, also refers several times
to the growing sentiment in favor of the idea that vermin
should not be too closely controlled.

“T regret to say,” he observes, “that the last surviving
pair of magpies in the locality where I was keepering
were picked up by a keeper (not myself). Utterly to
exterminate birds so handsome may save a trifle of game
for the gun, but surely such extremes of preservation can
only bring upon the perpetrators the derision and dis-
gust of all sane people. A judicious thinning of hawks
and magpies is quite enough to satisfy the demands of
any sportsman, and their extinction is bound to react to
the detriment of the selfish few.”

Mr. Jones makes a good point in favor of the egg
stealing jay. No sane keeper, he says, would wish to be
without a sprinkling of jays in his woods, for he has ne
more vigilant and useful sentinels. In a wood where
there are jays, neither cat, nor fox, nor man, can stir
without being spotted and proclaimed. Jays also take a
somewhat uncalled for delight in mobbing a barn owl
should it get abroad in the day time.

Although Mr. Jones lost hundreds of eggs every year
by rooks, and little pheasants on the rearing field had to
be guarded constantly, he does not favor the extirpation
of the rook. “I love as much as anybody,” he says, “their
cawing at the coming of Spring when the daisies open
wide.” Mr. Jones also says: “Reviewing the vermin
question as a whole—that is, first, What vermin prey
largely on game? and, second, What creatures prey on
it only occasionally?—I admit that there is much room

THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME 77

for improvement in the attitude of keepers. However,
I am certain that since education means enlightenment
and modern preservation and shooting demand keepers
of better education than formerly, the time is not far dis-
tant when all keepers will be men of education, and,
therefore, of enlightenment. In this way, and in no
other, will come about a rational discrimination in the
matter of creatures now so often slaughtered indiscrimi-
nately as vermin. What the thinking keeper of today
resents is that all keepers should be tarred with the sins
of individuals, but so long as the world lasts gamekeep-
ers will continue to complain that there is no visible end
to the vermin, whether it be clothed in feathers or fur.”

I have quoted the observations of Dr. Macpherson and
Mr. Jones at some length, since this matter of the control
of vermin is of much importance in America just now,
where many game preserves are springing into existence
in every State in the Union. We may as well start right
and learn to distinguish between the game enemies which
should be controlled and those which are comparatively
harmless. The reader should remember, however, at all
times that there is a difference in predaceous birds of the
same species and that the same species may act differ-
ently in different places or under different circumstances.

I have shot certain hawks, which are regarded as more
beneficial than harmful, when they were in the act of
taking game birds, and Mr. Thompson, a skilled keeper,
writing for The Amateur Sportsman,* tells of perform-
ances of the little sparrow hawk on his rearing field near
Chicago, Illinois, which would warrant the control of this
bird in the way he describes.

*The Amateur Sportsman, June, 1910.

XI
WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

ILD ducks have many natural enemies, and in
populous regions certain domestic enemies are
added which are sufficient to upset nature’s balance and
to prevent an increase of the fowl, even in places where
shooting is prohibited.

The enemies of wild fowl may be classified as winged
enemies and ground, or furry, enemies. The winged
enemies are the duck hawk and certain other hawks,
eagles, crows, owls, gulls, herons, jays, magpies and
sparrows. Mr. Thompson, a capable gamekeeper, men-
tions the red-headed woodpecker as an enemy of ducks
and says: “I have shot this thief as he carried the egg
of a wood-duck over my head, and I have seen him even
rob the chicken coop.’* It seems doubtful, however, if
the woodpecker would do much harm, and since it is a
useful and interesting bird I would not advise its de-
struction unless it appeared to be overabundant and was
observed to do much damage.

Some of the other winged enemies of game, also, are
useful and beneficial birds, and the game preserver al-
ways should bear in mind, as I have observed, the fact

*The Amateur Sportsman, 1910.
78

WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 79

that it is not necessary or desirable to destroy them all.
They should be controlled only so far as is necessary to
permit the game to increase in numbers rapidly. In
some places certain feathered enemies of game are not
sufficiently plentiful to require much attention. Pre-
daceous birds, however, are known to gather where
food is abundant, and gamekeepers should not be
prevented by law from controlling them when it be-
comes necessary to save the game birds on the rearing
grounds.

The Eagle—This magnificent bird of prey has been
so nearly extirpated in the Eastern States that he does
very little damage, and in places where it is rare no one
should think of killing it, unless it does much damage.
I would be inclined to let an eagle have a number of
ducks, and I may say as much for several other pre-
datory creatures when they are not numerous enough to
do a great amount of harm.

I saw an eagle not long ago which was killed by the
gamekeeper on a New Jersey preserve when it attempted
to take his ducks, and on an adjoining preserve the
gamekeeper has a mounted eagle in his cottage which he
shot when it was preying upon his pheasants.

In certain parts of the West eagles are fairly abundant,
and a number of eagles should not be tolerated in the
vicinity of a duck pond any more than a pack of wolves
should be tolerated in a sheep fold. Laws intended to
protect vermin for sentimental or for economic reasons
should not apply, as I have said often, to the breeders or
preservers of game.

In most parts of its range the bald eagle feeds more
largely on water fowl than on any other kind of birds.

80 WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

In the pursuit of this game this eagle employs great
strength and skill, to which it frequently adds no
small amount of strategy. Geese, brant and swans,
owing apparently to their large size, are its favorite
food.*

Mr. William Brewster says geese and brant form the
favorite food of the eagle, and the address displayed in
their capture is very remarkable. The poor victim has
apparently not the slightest chance for escape. The
eagle’s flight, ordinarily slow and somewhat heavy, be-
comes, in the excitement of pursuit, exceedingly swift and
graceful, and the fugitive is quickly overtaken. When
close upon its quarry the eagle suddenly sweeps beneath
it, and, turning back downward, thrusts its powerful
talons up into its breast. A brant or duck is carried off
bodily to the nearest marsh or sandbar, but a Canada
goose is too heavy to be thus easily disposed of. The
two great birds fall together to the water beneath, where
the eagle literally tows his prize along the surface until
the shore is reached. . . . The royal bird seems to find
little difficulty in overhauling the swiftest flying ducks.

The eagles are said to be numerous on the Atlantic
coast near Cape Charles in the Winter. Mr. Nathan
Cobb informed Mr. Brewster that on several occasions
he had seen as many as eight at once.

The gray sea eagle, about the same size as the bald
eagle, is also fond of wild fowl, but in America it occurs
only in Greenland, on the shores of the Cumberland
Sound and on the Aleutian Islands.+

The golden eagle, often called the mountain eagle, is

*“The N. Am. Eagles.” Bulletin 27, Biological Survey, U. 8. Dept. Agr.
tBulletin 27, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr.

HGG-STEALING CROW

From a Copyrighted Photograph Sent to The Amateur
Sportsman by Anson O. Howard.

WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 81

found chiefly in the Western and North Western parts
of the United States. It takes many rabbits and upland
birds, especially sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse, but
it does not seem to take so many ducks and other wild
fowl as the bald eagle, probably because the ducks are
not so abundant in the mountainous regions it prefers.
Mr. R. MacFarlane, however, mentions ducks as a
part of the regular food of this eagle in the region
of the Anderson River, Mackenzie, and Mr. L. M.
Turner makes a similar statement regarding the coast of
Alaska.*

The Crow.—I am strongly inclined to regard the crow
as one of the worst winged enemies of the wild ducks in
places where crows are abundant. This wary bird has
become superabundant in many places since the game
has decreased while the crow has increased in numbers.
Crows destroy both the eggs and the young birds. All
of the gamekeepers regard them as very destructive.
The crow has been observed in the New York Zoological
Park taking young ducks, and on many farms he has
been seen to take the eggs and young of poultry.

Mr. Price, at the Fells reservation, in Massachusetts,
raises both wild and domesticated ducks. He says the
crows took five outsof seven young ducks in one day. In
June about one hundred mallards were turned out
on a small pond. Ducks lay their eggs very early in the
morning, and every morning crows were seen carrying
off eggs. Mr. Price says they took about fifty each week,
carrying off altogether from eight hundred to one thou-
sand eggs during the season, taking about all the eggs
laid by the ducks. Crows are attracted by game when it
" *Bulletin 27, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr.

82 WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

is plentiful, and a gamekeeper at the Illinois game farm
killed 2,410 crows in one season.

The crow destroys the nests and young of all birds,
including wild turkeys, and the evidence against him is
conclusive. The reader who wishes to pursue the sub-
ject will find it fully discussed in an article on the crow
in The Amateur Sportsman for March, 1910, where the
picture here reproduced and some others were first pub-
lished.*

Various methods are used to control the crows. They
can be decoyed by the use of crow calls and shot, and
some keepers are very expert in imitating their cawing
without the aid of an artificial call. I saw the keeper on
a North Carolina preserve call crows from a great dis-
tance and shoot them from his ambush behind a little
cedar tree.

They are attracted by a stuffed owl, “the bugaboo” of
birds, placed on a pole or tree, and an owl especially
made for this purpose, which flaps its wings and turns
its head when a string is pulled, proves very deadly to all
feathered enemies of game, provided the gunner be a
good shot and well concealed. These decoy owls can be
purchased from Von Lengerke & Detmold, of Fifth
Avenue, New York, and the price is $25.

Mr. Thompson says: “Crows are very destructive to
the eggs and young ofalmost every species of game, and
constant war must be waged all the year around if the
game is to be saved. Crows are especially fond of young
ducklings, and where these are raised on the farm means
for their protection must be devised. The best method of

*The photographs which are copyrighted were sent by Mr. Anson O.
Howard of Massachusetts.

DECOY OWL
Photograph by Justus Von Lengerke

WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 83

protection is to kill the crows. There are many methods
of doing this. Poisoned entrails and poisoned eggs can be
used to advantage, where this is lawful, and trapping can
be done to baits as described for hawks. Trapping in the
snow by means of blood spilled on the snow and a steel
trap placed nearby, destroying the nests in the breeding
season, waiting for the crows with shotguns as they
come in to roost, all are effective methods of destruction.
The watchword when crows are about is, keep killing
them, especially where the flocks run up into the thou-
sands.’

The crow does a good part of his nefarious work very
early in the morning, when he seems to know that peo-
ple are abed. His hunt at such times is a still hunt, and
he comes close to buildings where he would not venture
later in the day.2 Mr. Judd describes a crow which came
daily into a barnyard and sat on a fence, evidently wait-
ing until a hen had laid an egg, when at once he made off
with it.3 |

The Hawks—lIt is admitted that there are good and
bad hawks, but even some of the good ones will require
watching, since they readily acquire a fondness for game
and eggs when they are abundant and easily obtained.
The worst enemy of the ducks among the hawks is un-
doubtedly the Peregrine falcon, or duck hawk. This
bird, like some other hawks, seems to hunt for pleasure
and often kills more ducks than it can eat.

I have shot them on many marshes where they were
thus engaged. Upon one occasion Mr. George Shiras, 3d,
went with me to the preserve of the Ottawa Club, near

1The Amateur Sportsman, June, 1910. 2Ib. March, 1910. 3 Bulletin,
“Birds of a Maryland Farm.” U.S. Dept. Agr.

84 WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

Sandusky, Ohio, before the season opened, to make some
photographs of wild ducks. He had placed a number of
wooden decoys before his blind when a hawk struck one
of them and carried it some distance from the water. Mr.
Shiras had two cameras and secured a picture of the
hawk as it struck. He tried for another picture as the
bird soared aloft carrying the decoy, with its weight
hanging down, but his aim was bad, and the hawk did
not appear on the plate.

When I examined the decoy I observed that the hawk’s
talons had been sunk deeply into the wood.

The hawks can be controlled by shooting them from
ambush, and many can be killed by steel traps placed on
poles. On some preserves very small poles are used, and
these are stood in pieces of drain tile inserted in the
ground. The pole when so arranged easily can be taken
down to set the trap. One preserver informed me that he
stood his poles up against the fences.

On one occasion, on a Western marsh, a hawk was ob-
served to follow a flock of teal and strike down three of
them in succession. He was hunting wantonly and flew
away without stopping to eat one of the ducks.

When ducks are breeding wild in the marshes they are
comparatively secure from many dangerous hawks which
are not often seen in such places, but when the ducks are
reared on farms the hawks which are injurious to poul-
try must be controlled. The worst hawks undoubtedly
are the Goshawk, Cooper’s hawk and Sharp Shinned
hawk, but the hawks which are regarded as more bene-
ficial than harmful should be observed, and when they
gather in large numbers or when a single hawk persists
in taking many young ducks it should be destroyed, of

WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 85

course, if the owner of the place prefers ducks to
hawks.1

Dr. Field, chairman of the Massachusetts Commission
of Fisheries and Game, says that the marsh hawk is very
destructive to the grouse on Martha’s Vineyard.

The reader will find the hawks discussed at length in
a bulletin issued by the United States Department of
Agriculture,? but in reading it he should remember that
the conclusions stated are founded largely upon stomach
examinations and that such evidence is not always re-
liable. Since game is everywhere very scarce no doubt
many of the specimens examined had no chance to eat
game, and it does not follow that any of the hawks would
not take young ducks or other game in places where the
game was abundant. The safe rule is to observe what
the hawks are doing on the rearing field and to act ac-
cordingly.

Gulls—Some gulls undoubtedly take eggs and young
ducks, but all gulls, even in the same flock, it is claimed,
are not equally bad. A gamekeeper on an English pre-
serve, who observed that gulls were destroying his ducks,
killed the pair which were thus engaged, and he is re-
ported to have said that the other gulls did no harm
thereafter.

The Rev. H. A. Macpherson says some gulls are very
destructive to grouse as well as to ducks. “The lesser
black-backed gull,’ he says, “is a shameless gourmand
and does a great amount of mischief. He likes the young

1 The marsh hawk is classed as a beneficial hawk by ornithologists,
but I shot one which had a quail in its talons as it flew overhead, and
Audubon says when impelled by hunger it will attack partridges, plov-
ers and teal. It should be killed only when it appears to be preying on
game, 2 “Hawks and Owls.” Bulletin, U. S. Dept. Agr.

86 WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL

wild ducks better than the tiny grouse, but nothing seems
to come amiss to his hungry maw. It occasionally hap-
pens that an old herring gull takes to felonious practices.
They suck poisoned eggs eagerly, and I have seen indi-
vidual birds beating the hill day after day searching for
grouse nests. I have also known the herring gull to
carry off young chickens from a cottage door.”*

The Owls—The great horned owl and the snowy
owl are the enemies of game birds and poultry, and
where ducks are reared near woods they no doubt would
take some of them. The owls are not abundant, however,
in most places, and the game preserver has little to fear
on their account. They are interesting birds, and I would
hesitate to destroy them unless it clearly appeared that
they were doing much harm. The only owl which visited
me when I made my experiments with wild ducks was
the little screech owl, and I had no losses due to owls.

John Burroughs calls the owl the bugaboo of birds,
and there can be no doubt that he creates a great dis-
turbance whenever he appears. The reader will find the
merits and demerits of owls fully discussed in the bul-
letin on “Hawks and Owls” issued by the United States
Department of Agriculture, but, since some of the speci-
mens were taken in places where there was no game for
them to eat, the evidence, which was based on stomach
examinations, is not conclusive, as I have suggested.
Mr. Forbush, also, has well said such examinations repre-
sent only one meal. .

English Sparrows—The sparrows are a nuisance on
the game preserve, since when they are abundant they

*“The Grouse.” By H. A. Macpherson and others. Longmans, Green
& Co.

GOOD BAG OF CROWS SHOT OVER A DECOY OWL
Photograph by Justus Von Lengerke

WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 87

devour much food which is intended for the game. They
have been known to destroy the eggs of wild ducks, and
they undoubtedly drive many desirable small birds away.
They easily can be shot and trapped, and their nests
should be destroyed as soon as made.

The Magpie—The magpie in the West and in parts of
British America is an enemy of game which should be
controlled closely. One of my correspondents writes
that in Washington (State) he has known the magpie
to destroy the nests of the prairie grouse. I have had
other reports about the damage done by these birds in
the West and in some of the Canadian Provinces.

The heron is said to destioy young ducks in England,
but I have no reports about this bird in America. When
visiting a duck preserve in New Jersey I heard a shot
fired and saw the gunner across the pond. I asked the
gamekeeper what was shot, and he said it was a crane,
and added that its mate had killed several ducks and was
in the act of killing one when he shot it. I regret that I
did not see the bird, since the crane is a rare visitor in
New Jersey. Probably it was a heron.

The Jay.—This bird, as I have observed, is beneficial to
gamekeepers. It undoubtedly is an egg stealer, but
probably it takes the eggs of small birds for the most
part. Jays should not be permitted to become over-
abundant, since it is desirable to preserve the smaller
song and insectivorous birds on the farms included in a
preserve, as elsewhere.

XII

THE GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES OF WILD
FOWL

HE principal ground enemies of game birds are:
Foxes, wolves, minks, weasels, skunks, raccoons,
squirrels, snakes and moles. In settled regions roving
dogs, cats and rats are added to the list, and these become
often the worst enemies of wild fowl.

In addition to the enemies named, frogs, turtles and
certain fish also are known to take young ducks.

Mr. Robert B. Lawrence told me that a frog in his
brother’s duck pond was killed which had devoured a
young sprig-tailed duck, and since many young wood-
duck had disappeared, unaccountably, he believed the
frogs had eaten them. A correspondent of The American
Field confirms the destructive propensities of the bull-
frog. “We had,” he says, “quite a number of tame mal-
lard ducks, which hatched their eggs in the woods, and
the first we saw of their young was in the water with
their mothers. We noticed the number of the ducklings
decreased quite rapidly and found on investigation that
when they got near the shores, one after another were
pulled under the water by large frogs, which drowned
and then swallowed them. To preserve them, whenever

88

A SCARE-FOX
The Scare-fox has shutters which are run by clockwork so as
to fall every ten minutes, causing the light to
flash in three directions.

GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES 89

we saw a new brood on the water, we captured and kept
them in the chicken yard until they were quite large
enough to care for themselves.”

Pike also take young ducks, and turtles, where they
are abundant, are a serious check to the increase of
ducks.

The Fox—In places where foxes are numerous un-
doubtedly they destroy many game birds as well as poul-
try. Mr. F. E. R. Fryer, an English authority on game
preserving, says: “Although I am of the opinion that in
the long run it is best not to attempt game preserving
on a large scale in a fox-hunting county, just as I think
it is a mistake to try to start a pack of hounds in a good
partridge county, a few hints as to the best way to pro-
tect the partridge from the fox may be of interest to
some, who, though all in favor of fox-hunting, like occa-
sionally to take a gun out.” Mr. Fryer insists that it is
necessary to have a good keeper to control foxes and that
he must know every nest and endeavor to prevent them
getting at it.

The rearing field for ducks should be wired, and traps
for foxes should be distributed liberally outside the wire
and in all likely places. Dogs on the preserve are useful
to keep foxes away, and where foxes are numerous they
should be hunted with hounds and destroyed. The game-
keeper does not hesitate to shoot a fox, in America, but in
England often he is ordered to preserve the foxes, and
in fox-hunting counties the gamekeeper’s work is more
difficult than it is in places where foxes are controlled.
An abundance of rabbits is desirable, since foxes are
fond of them and find them easier to catch than game
birds are. Owen Jones calls rabbits the fox’s bread and

90 GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES

butter, and adds, “It would be a sorry prospect for keep-
ers, game and foxes if rabbits were exterminated, for
they are the buffers of peace in the community of the
woods.”

Wild ducks are in little, if any, danger from foxes
when they are taken to the pond, and a low wire such as
is pictured in the illustrations of ducks on the water
seems to afford protection from many kinds of ground
vermin. Anything attempting to get over the wire easily
is seen or heard, and the ducks can take wing or swim
out of danger. Islands in the ponds are very desirable,
as I have observed. They are safe refuges for the ducks
from many kinds of vermin, including cats.

Wolves —With the exception of the coyote, wolves are
unknown in places where ducks are preserved or where
they are likely to be preserved before the wolves are ex-
tirpated. I have seen the sly coyote hunting ducks about
the reedy banks of a Western pond, and once I stopped
one just as he was about to pounce on some young mal-
lards. Where coyotes occur they should be poisoned,
shot, trapped or otherwise controlled, and the nesting
and rearing fields of the ducks should be wired against
them.

Minks and W easels—Both the mink and the weasel are
difficult enemies to deal with. These animals seem to
hunt wantonly, and they destroy more than they can
eat. The mink has been known to kill more than fifty
fowls in a night. Winged vermin is easily seen, and on
this account it is more easily controlled. But the mink
and the weasel, like other furry vermin, are seldom seen,
and often they are hard to exterminate. A good game-
keeper quickly will detect their presence, and he should

GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES on

know how to trap them. They are taken with common
steel traps. Minks can be hunted with a good dog, and I
read an account not long ago of a Western hunter who
found them in the sloughs with the aid of a halfbreed
pointer trained to hunt them.

The Raccoon.—Mr. S. Evans, the father of the pro-
prietor of the Wallace Evans Game Farm, told me that
the “coons” were sometimes a pest. They succeeded in
destroying young ducks on the game farm notwithstand-
ing the fact that the place is heavily trapped and guarded
by competent keepers.

The Skunk.—The naturalists regard the skunk as a
beneficial animal, and I doubt much if it destroys as
many eggs and young birds as some people think it does.
There can be no doubt, however, that sometimes it takes
the eggs and young of game birds, and it seems likely it
might develop a decided taste for them in places where
such food was abundant and easily procured. Skunks
are easily trapped and shot, and a good gamekeeper
should have little difficulty in keeping them down when
they are observed to be harmful.

Snakes.—Both the rattlesnake and the blacksnake have
been known to take quail and their eggs, and I have no
doubt they would take young ducks. It is not a difficult
matter, however, to keep snakes out of a well wired rear-
ing and breeding field, and easily they are destroyed
with the aid of a terrier in places where the cover
is not too heavy. A gamekeeper once gave me an amus-
ing account of the killing of a blacksnake by one of his
beruers:

The Mole——The late Mr. C. J. Cornish, in Shooting,
says: “I remember a case in which a mole made its run

92 GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES

through the bottom of a nest (a very frequent cause of
mischief where nests are not known of and looked at
periodically). A good number of the eggs had disap-
peared down the hole, and after various attempts to stop
the run had failed, I moved the nest over a yard away
without the removal having any apparent effect on the
bird” (the gray partridge).

Turtles—Where turtles are abundant they are among
the worst enemies of young ducks. They are difficult to
control on large waters, but they are easily removed from
small waters. Many turtles can be shot, both in the wa-
ter and on the banks, and they can be captured in various
ways with nets and baits. It is highly important to ex-
tirpate them when they are observed to be feeding on
young water fowl.

Pike and pickerel are known to take small ducks, and
these fish should be removed from the ponds where the
young ducks are reared.

The muskrat has been considered an enemy of ducks,
but most sportsmen and naturalists are of the opinion
that this interesting animal does little, if any, harm on
the duck preserve. The fact that ducks often are seen
swimming about in places where muskrats abound would
seem to indicate that they are not alarmed and that they
do not regard the muskrats as their enemies. This sub-
ject was fully discussed in The Amateur Sportsman for
March, 1909. The evidence there presented is decidedly
in favor of the muskrat. The muskrat might be made
profitable on some duck preserves.

In settled regions many of the natural enemies of
game, with the exception of crows and certain hawks,
often are not sufficiently abundant to do much damage,

GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES 93

and where they are few it does not seem wise to destroy
them, excepting, of course, where they are observed to
be doing serious damage. A mink or weasel which de-
stroys a large number of ducks should be hunted down
and killed at any season of the year. The gamekeeper
and not a State game warden should decide the matter on
private lands.

Where the natural enemies of game are few the do-
mestic enemies often are very numerous and destructive.
The cats are noted bird hunters; the dogs are fond of
chasing birds and prevent their nesting; the rats eat not
only young birds, but also the eggs. I have been sur-
prised, when visiting American game preserves, to learn
of the numbers of cats destroyed by the gamekeepers.
In many places throughout America the cats are suff-
ciently abundant, undoubtedly, to prevent the wild ducks
from nesting and rearing their young, even if the birds
were not persistently shot by people living in the vicinity
of the ponds and lakes. The cats seem to be increasing in
many places, and many annually are turned down to
shift for themselves, and quickly they become wild. They
are skillful in taking birds.

It is not a very difficult matter for a gamekeeper to
control the cats, since they are easily discovered and shot
as they prowl about. They can be trapped with steel
traps and hunted with terriers. I have seen a terrier
make short work of killing a cat, and the terriers are
useful dogs on the preserve, since they will destroy other
ground vermin.

Some cats can be taught not to kill birds, and I have
seen cats at gamekeepers’ houses which walked about
among the young pheasants and ducks without causing

94 GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES

any alarm. The gamekeeper quickly would destroy his
cat and replace it with another if it exhibited any
disposition to eat birds. Good cats I regard as ex-
ceptional. All the cats I have ever owned destroyed
birds daily.

_ Rats undoubtedly are among the worst enemies of
ducks. Captain Oates says they are the worst. He
took sixteen wild duck eggs from one rat hole. Fryer
disposes of rats in five words, “Rats must be cleared
out.”

The common brown rat was introduced in America
about the year 1775, and despite the incessant warfare of
man, it has extended its range and steadily increased in
numbers. Its dominance is due to its great fecundity
and its ability to adapt itself to all sorts of conditions.
A compilation of all the methods of destroying rats prac-
ticed in historic times would fill a volume. One of the
most effective poisons for rats is barium carbonate, or
bayrites.®

Mr. Lantz, who prepared the bulletin cited, says the
improved traps with a wire fall released by a baited trig-
ger and driven by a coiled spring (sometimes called guil-
lotine traps) have a marked advantage over the old
forms, and many of them may be used at the same time.
The traps should be baited with small pieces of Vienna
sausage (wienerwurst) or bacon.

Mr. Lantz, in a second bulletin prepared for the Bio-
logical Survey, United States Department of Agricul-

1 “Wild Ducks.” 2 “Country Life Lib. Sport, Vol. I., Shooting, p. 135.
3 “Methods of Destroying Rats.” Farmers’ Bulletin 297, U. S. Dept.
Agr. This bulletin can be had upon application to the U. S. Agricul-
tural Department, Washington, D. C.

GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES 95

ture,1 says: “The rat is a most serious pest in game pre-
serves. The propagation of game birds, both native and
introduced, is now a promising industry in the United
States. The rat has already proved itself a foe by de-
stroying both eggs and young of pheasants. Abroad,
the game preserver regards the rat as the worst enemy
of game. A writer in Chambers’ Journal says, ‘In a
closely preserved country at the end of an average year
the game suffers more from the outlying rats of the lord-
ship than from the foxes and the mustelines together.
The solitary rats, whether males or females, are the curse
of a game country. They are most difficult to detect, for
in a majority of cases their special work is supposed to
be done by hedgehog, weasels or stoats.’”

The late Mr. William Carnegie (‘““Moorman’’), one of
the most distinguished sporting writers, who at the time
of his death was the English correspondent of The Ama-
teur Sportsman, says in his work on “Game Preserving:”
“There is little doubt that of late years the worst vermin
with which the generality of preservers have had to con-
tend has been the rat. It has increased largely in num-
bers and in some districts become quite a plague, despite
the extraordinary efforts made to deal with its ever-
increasing depredations. It is unnecessary to speculate
upon the probable cause of this remarkable increase. It
is due entirely to the neglect of farmers, preservers and
others to adopt adequate means to deal with the pest.’”’*

Mr. Lantz says our native game birds in the wild state
are less subject to rat depredations than imported species.

1 “The Brown Rat in the United States.” By David EB. Lanty. Bul-
letin 33, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr. 2 Chambers’ Journal, Vol.
82, p. 64, January, 1905.

*“Practical Game Preserving.” By William Carnegie, p. 349.

96 GROUND AND WATER ENEMIES

The nests of ruffed grouse are made in the woodlands,
which rats seldom invade. The prairie hen and related
species generally nest in places remote from the usual
haunts of rats. The quail, or Bob White, however, often
selects a nesting site within the Summer range of rats,
and many a quail’s egg reaches the maws of these ani-
mals. Nests of wild ducks, woodcock and other marsh
birds are frequently destroyed by rats. .

Ferrets and dogs are very useful in controlling them.
Mr. J. C. O’Conor informed me that they were overrun
with rats at a preserve in which he is interested, in Vir-
ginia, but that they succeeded in controlling them by the
use of terriers and traps.

Roving dogs alarm the nesting birds and often chase
and kill them. Some dogs are fond of eggs. Ducks can-
not be expected to nest in a place where they are annoyed
by dogs. It is not a difficult matter to shoot a worthless
dog when he visits a preserve, but valuable dogs should,
of course, be caught and held for their owners.

One of the worst fish enemies of ducks is the carp,
not because it destroys the birds, but because it destroys
their food—the wild rice and other aquatic plants. On the
marshes owned by the Winous Point Club and by the
Ottawa Club, near Port Clinton, Ohio, and in many other
places, the carp have practically destroyed the wild rice
which a few years ago furnished an abundance of food
for countless numbers of wild fowl. The number of
ducks which nest in these marshes or which visit them
on their migration has been sadly decreased.

The carp destroy the plants by rooting them up, and
in some places the ducks have been forced to abandon
the waters where the carp have become abundant.

XIII
AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS

EARLY all of the best marshes and the desirable
lands about the ponds and lakes in the United
States which are frequented by wild fowl during their
migrations now are owned or leased by individuals and
clubs.

The best shooting points about the Chesapeake Bay
-and on the outlying beaches also are controlled in the
same way, and the number of duck clubs is increasing
rapidly. For a time the shares in these clubs became
more and more valuable as the years passed, until shares
which cost a few hundred dollars or less when they were
issued easily were sold for from $1,000 to $5,000 and per-
haps more. The diminution of the flight, due to the de-
crease in the numbers of the ducks, has caused a decline
in the value of the shares in some of the duck clubs, and
in some instances the decline in value has been rapid.

The marshes about the great lakes in the United States
and Canada are owned and controlled by many clubs.
The center of abundance of these clubs is from Sandusky
Westward and around the Western end of Lake Erie to
the St. Clair Flats, where there are excellent duck clubs,
both in the United States and in Canada,

97

08) = AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS

The ducks were so abundant a few years.ago that no
effort was made to increase their numbers or to control
their natural enemies. The shooting was kept up late in
the Spring, after the ducks had mated and when many
of them would have remained to nest, undoubtedly, had
they been given a chance to do so. As long as the ducks
were abundant the necessity for looking after them and
increasing their numbers did not occur to anyone.

There are many small ponds on these club grounds
which have desirable fields adjacent where the artificial
rearing of ducks could be carried on to great advantage.
Thousands of ducks could be produced every Spring at
a very small expense, since they could be liberated when
a few weeks old, and they would find most of their food
in the marshes. The vanishing wood-duck, the teal and
other fowl could be made to provide excellent shooting
by the end of August and long before any migratory
birds arrive from the North.

At the time of my visit to the Lake Erie group of clubs
I observed that some of the natural enemies of the game
were abundant. Hawks were often seen in the air, and
on one occasion a hawk alighted on the head of a punter
who sat motionless in the grass, the bird mistaking his
old gray hat for a stump, no doubt. There were many
rattlesnakes on the preserves of the Ottawa and Winous
Point Clubs, and one of them crawled up on a log where
I was seated sketching one day and coiled itself up be-
side me. I was somewhat alarmed when I discovered it,
but easily killed it.

The unfortunate introduction of the carp has destroyed
miles of splendid food—the wild rice—and Mr. Chamber-
lain, the Secretary of the Ottawa Club, recently wrote me

BLUEBILL SHOT AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY BONNYCASTLE
DALE

AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS 99

that they were now feeding tons of grain in the effort to
induce the ducks to remain during the shooting season.
It should not be a very difficult matter to wire some of
the desirable ponds against the carp and to destroy all
of those within the protected territory, when the wild rice
could be restored, and soon it would grow as luxuri-
antly as it formerly did.

There are many duck clubs in the vicinity of Chicago
and Northward at Fox Lake and other desirable places.
The whole vast region along the Illinois River in the
vicinity of Peoria and Havana is occupied, and there are
hundreds of clubs about the marshy lakes of the Western
and North Western States. On the Pacific coast the
duck clubs already are numerous in Oregon and Wash-
ington and abundant in California from the vicinity of
Sacramento South to Los Angeles, where there are lit-
erally miles of clubs.

There are a few clubs about the great reservoirs in
Ohio, and there are many clubs in New England, es-
pecially in Massachusetts.

Along the Atlantic coast there are many insular clubs,
which own for the most part the islands where their club
houses are erected.

The Princess Anne, the Ragged Island and the Back
Bay Clubs, a short distance from Norfolk, Virginia, mark
the beginning of a long line of clubs (most of which have
fine club houses), which extends Southward through
Currituck Sound to the waters of the Albemarle and
Pamlico. Many men act as guards to keep out poachers.

To the Southward there are many more clubs, notably
those about the mouth of the Santee, in South Carolina,
and the number is increasing.

100 AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS

The amount of money invested in lands, buildings and
boats, including power launches and yachts, is tremen-
dous, and the many thousands of gunners who own
shares in these clubs should take notice of the fact that
the wild fowl must decrease in numbers when their
Northern nesting grounds are destroyed and that it seems
certain that the ducks will visit the club marshes in much
smaller numbers than they now do, provided the shoot-
ing continues to increase and nothing be done to cause
an increase in the numbers of the game.

All of these club men, whose properties are situated
to the Eastward of the Rocky Mountains, should
take an interest, as I have said, in the “wild ducks’
paradise,” and they should endeavor to so arrange mat-
ters that the Northern breeding grounds be not all de-
stroyed. :

Some vast parks, containing miles of sloughs and
ponds, should be set aside as duck refuges in “the ducks’
paradise,” just as the parks and big game refuges have
been created for the deer and elk in the Western States.
I believe this matter can be arranged easily and that it
will be before long. I suggested the setting aside of
some refuges for ducks (in “Our Feathered Game’), and
some of the places I named have since been made national
bird parks.* But this is not enough. The inhabitants of .
“the wild ducks’ paradise’ should be taught that it will
pay not to drain many of the sloughs and. ponds and that
they can be profitably used as breeding places for the
ducks. The people should be encouraged to properly
look after the wild fowl on these famous breeding

*Stump Lake, N. Dak., is one of the most important wild duck refuges.
See Our Feathered Game, p. 33.

AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS 101

grounds and to sell them alive for propagation and as
food in the markets.

The duck clubs must learn, also, that they should
create as well as destroy on their own marshes and that
it is necessary to create before an army of guns can
safely shoot any species of game in large numbers.

The employment of a few skilled gamekeepers, or even
of natives living in the vicinity who know the habits of
the furry and winged enemies of game and how to trap
and shoot them, would be followed by a decided increase
in the numbers of the game. This is especially true pro-
vided the shooting be discontinued at the end of Feb-
ruary or early in March and even before those dates on
certain ponds which should be set aside for breeding
places.

It would be interesting and profitable also, at the
Northern clubs at least, to undertake the hand-rearing
of fowl on a large scale, and some species—the wood-
duck, the Florida dusky duck, the mallard, the blue-
winged teal and some others—could be propagated, no
doubt, in large numbers in the South. I have seen the
mallard breeding in the care of a gamekeeper as far South
as North Carolina.

The duck clubs which may undertake to increase the
ducks (I am pleased to observe that some recently have
done so) should be encouraged by legislation, as I have
often pointed out. They should be classed as breeders’
and permitted to regulate their shooting during a long
open season, without State interference, and they should
be permitted to sell some of the game alive for propaga-
tion or as food in the markets, under State regulation and
to licensed dealers, of course.

102 AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS

In some places, notably in Illinois and California, a
prejudice has existed against the owners of duck marshes.
Those who have not secured ducking grounds often look
with envious eyes upon those who are more fortunate.
In the States named there has been much ill feeling in
certain localities, and near Chicago some years ago this
resulted in rioting and bloodshed on the grounds of the
Tolleston Club. The marshes which were a bone of con-
tention since have been drained and built up, and, of
course, there is no shooting for anybody. Those who
are hostile to the duck clubs should remember that the
chances are that the grounds occupied by the clubs will
be drained before they are opened to the public.

Common sense must regulate this matter eventually,
and I am pleased to observe that the prejudice against
those who preserve the ducks has disappeared in many
regions. The courts have held, uniformly, that the own-
ers of marshes have the right to exclude trespassers.

In some of the States ponds which contain over ten or
fifteen acres are held to be public waters, but they are of
little value to the public for duck shooting, since the
whole neighborhood would rise up in arms if a duck ven-
tured to alight on a public pond in a settled region. It
is, of course, an easy matter to scare wild fowl away from
such places. It would be far better if the game protec-
tive associations would devise some means for stocking
such places with fowl and for regulating the public shoot-
ing so as not to drive the birds away. The lands about
most of the ponds, however, are owned by individuals
and not by the State, and in no State can trespassers
shoot on inclosed and cultivated lands if the owner ob-
jects.

AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS 103

It is nonsense to say that the trespass laws should not
be enforced or that they should be repealed. The owners
of farms and cattle ranches in the West have the right to
prevent the introduction of buffalo as “State” game.
The farmers have prevented the introduction of “State”
pheasants in some places, and the owners of duck lands
prevent trespass.

The State can provide public parks for public shoot-
ing, but, as I have insisted often, it cannot license gun-
ners to shoot up the farms or other lands owned by indi-
viduals who object to trespassers.

The duck clubs can do much to overcome the foolish
prejudice which exists against them in some localities if
they will become breeders of wild fowl and will purchase
stock birds and eggs and undertake the artificial produc-
tion of game of all sorts. If they will sell some of the
game produced, so that the markets are fully supplied
with game during a long open season, the people soon
will uphold. them, since they will appear to be beneficial
to others besides themselves. Shooters who do nothing
towards breeding game soon will find the shooting on
public waters much improved, and all controversy
should come to an end.

Mr. Frank Bonnett in a series of articles written for
The Amateur Sportsman on “English Game Preserving,”
described the formation of a shooting club, or a syndicate,
at they say in England, and gave the figures, showing
that it does not cost much to have good shooting in Eng-
land, where lands and shooting rentals are many times
higher than they are in America.

I know some sportsmen who have fairly good shoot-
ing in America at a cost of from $15 to $25 per gun, and

104 AMERICAN DUCK CLUBS

they always will, unless those who are opposed to field
sports succeed in prohibiting shooting at all times.

There are many places in America where wild ducks
can be introduced and made plentiful, and any persons
who wish to have good shooting can do so at small ex-
pense. The time has come to cease making new game
laws in the hope of improving the sporting conditions
and to do something towards restoring the game to the
places where it no longer occurs.

XIV
TO FORM A DUCK. CLUB, OR SYNDICATE

HE necessity for the employment of a gamekeeper
when the restoration, propagation and practical
protection of wild fowl is undertaken in populous regions
is evident. The most expensive items incident to the
rearing of wild ducks for sport are the wages of the
gamekeeper and the food for the ducks. The shooting
rental is a small item, comparatively, in America, since
ground suitable for duck rearing can be rented for shoot-
ing purposes for a few cents per acre.*

When a farmer, or a sportsman residing in the country,
undertakes to rear wild ducks and looks after them per-
sonally, very good sport can be had at little or no ex-
pense, because the sale of some of the ducks and eggs
will pay the food bill, and, of course, there is no rent.

*The rentals paid for many upland preserves are from 5 to 10 cents
per acre, or from $32 to $64 per square mile, per annum. Lands suitable
for ducks which are only worth a few dollars per acre should be rented
for less than the amounts n; ned.

1Captain Oates says: “I am of the opinion that, provided a man feeds
and looks after his ducks himself, is in possession of a supply of coops
and runs, and is fortunate enough to have a suitable piece of water of
his own, as well as a lot of ground to rear them on, that he can make
his accounts balance at the end of the year. In other words, he will be
able to give his friends some very enjoyable shooting, and supply him-
self with a hobby of which he will never be tired at no expense to him-
self.” “Wild Ducks.” By Captain W. Coape Oates. This valuable little

105

106 TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE

The game farmers who rear large numbers of wild
ducks and other game birds and sell the birds and eggs
to game preservers find the industry profitable, but an
individual shoot, where a sportsman pays all of the ex-
penses, including the salaries of gamekeepers, is too
costly for the average gun, and for this reason clubs, or
syndicates, as they are called in England, are formed in
order that the members may have good shooting and
divide the expenses.

It is advantageous to have the cost of the shares and
the annual dues small, so that desirable members of small
means can be secured and practical game preserving can
be made popular.

The cost of conducting a duck shoot varies according
to the location, and it would be impossible to give an es-
timate of the expenses which would be found accurate
everywhere.

The best gamekeepers in America receive about $75 per
month and their house rent, which may be estimated
roughly at $200 to $300 per year. The cost of the food
for the ducks depends much upon the place selected, since
grain is cheaper in some localities than it is in others.
The cost of the food can be much reduced when the grain
is raised on the preserve.

A New York syndicate will propagate both wild ducks
and upland game next season, and an accurate estimate
of its receipts and a rough estimate of its expenses will be
found in a note at the bottom of the following page.

book can be procured from The Amateur Sportsman Co., Box 22, Grand
Central, New York. Price $1.50.

In support of the above statement, Captain Oates prints some figures
based on the rearing of 250 ducks. The food for the ducklings is esti-
mated at £16, or about $80.

,Adquno,y vq) ut e[doaq dvoy 0} pue} s}10dg ple,
POIUGINY NV NO GOVELOO S AWAdHaMaAWN VY)

v

GAUASHUd N

pre ey Pa *
ae By

—4
=
=
at
=
. =

«38

_ RE ee ee

TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE 107

I believe a full allowance has been made for most of
the expense items and that some of the stock birds can
be purchased at a lower price than is stated. The club
may, also, decide to purchase some eggs and to save in
other ways.*

It is desirable to have at least 100 or 200 shares, in or-
der that the dues may be small, but the number of guns
that can be accommodated depends, of course, upon the
size of the preserve. It is not a bad plan to fix the value
of the shares at from $25 to $30 and to provide that mem-
bers can own from one to twenty shares each, since those
who can afford to contribute to practical game protection
will take a number of shares, and the amount needed to
pay the expenses of the shoot can be realized without

* RECEIPTS FROM SALE OF SHARES.

200 Shares at $30 each, $6,000.
ESTIMATED EXPENSES OF PLANT AND ORGANIZATION.

Hatching House and Breeding and Rearing Yards, $500;
Extra Wire, $200; Coops, Setting Boxes, Tins, $250; Pheasant
Pen, $200; Expenses of Securing Leases and of Organization,
500; Stock: Wild Turkeys, $150; Wild Ducks, $450; Pheasants
or Hungarian Partridges, $300; Quail, $225; Rabbits, $45; 500
Hens, $180. Total, $3,000.

Surplus in hands of Directors, $3,000.

RECEIPTS.
Annual Dues, $6,000.

OPERATING EXPENSES ( ESTIMATED.)

Shooting Rent, 10,000 acres at 8c. per acre, $800; Wages of
Gamekeeper, $1,000; Rent Keeper’s House, $300; Extra Labor,
$1,200; Managing Director’s Salary and Expenses, $800; Food
for Birds, $1,500. Total, $5,600.

This syndicate hopes to rear from five to ten thousand birds
(including birds breeding wild and in captivity) the first year.

108 TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE

having too many guns. The annual dues should be from
$25 to $50 per annum. :

The syndicate to which I have referred was started
with one subscription for twenty shares, and several of
the members own from two to five shares each. The
others pay $30 each for one share and $30 annual dues.

If the shoot contains eight or ten thousand acres and
is well watered a hundred members is not too many, since
it is evident that some of the members will not shoot
much or often, and there should be some “preferred
stockholders,’ as a friend of mine humorously terms
those who pay their dues and do not shoot at all.

It is not a difficult matter to secure preferred stock-
holders, since men easily can be found who are willing to
aid in the restoration and protection of our indigenous
game birds provided they can have some of them for their
tables.

It is advisable to undertake the rearing of some upland
game in addition to the wild ducks.” Many sportsmen
prefer to shoot over dogs.

Many species of upland birds will respond nicely to the
control of vermin, and since the ducks nest early the
gamekeeper can rear a lot of upland birds in captivity
after his ducks are well started, and he can give some
attention to the quail and other birds nesting wild on the
preserve. He will see that they are not destroyed by
their enemies or by farm machinery.

The first step in forming a game syndicate of any kind
is to secure the signatures of the required number of
members to a subscription contract. The simple form
of contract used by the New York Game Breeders’ Asso-
ciation is as follows:

TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE 109

In order to form a game syndicate to rent the shooting and
propagate game on lands in the vicinity of New York:

We, the undersigned, subscribe for the number of shares set
opposite our names and agree to pay one-half of the amount
when the board of management shall be chosen and the other
half when called for by the board of directors.

It is understood that the shares are to be $30.00 each and that
the annual dues shall be $30.00 per share. The dues shall be
payable in 1911 as called for by the board of directors. The
syndicate may be formed and the board elected when 100 shares
are subscribed.

It is proposed to have 200 shares; not more than 20 to be held
by any one person.

IVa ea ei RE 5 ee eed teen Wo.-of Shares:..:....2:.4.

A paragraph might well be added providing for the
compensation of the person who secures the signatures
and performs the work of organization, as follows:

“It is understood that A. B , who has agreed to undertake
the work of securing the signatures to this agreement, of organ-
izing the syndicate and of procuring the shooting leases, shall
receive for his services the sum of $................ for each share and
his necessary traveling expenses.”

Much time necessarily is consumed in explaining the
objects of the association to those who are. invited to be-
come active or “preferred” stockholders and in securing
the leases from the land owners and in explaining the
objects of the association to them, and it is fair that the
person who undertakes this work should be paid. The
work also will progress more rapidly if some one is thus
employed than it will otherwise.

When the required number of shareholders have sub-
scribed for the stock they should be notified to attend a
meeting and elect a board of directors. Proxies should
be secured from those who cannot attend the meeting.

110 TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE

If the club decides to purchase any land it should be
incorporated.

The board should be made up of from six to ten or more
directors, and it should at once organize and elect its
officers—a president, vice-president, secretary and treas-
urer. The board should select an executive committee of
three members, and the chairman of this committee
should be designated as the managing director. A simple
constitution providing for the officers and their duties
should be adopted by the members, and the board should
have the power to make rules to govern the shooting
and the conduct of the members. The simplest form of
constitution used by social clubs will answer every pur-
pose.

The managing director should recommend to the club
the purchase of the stock birds and eggs and the appli-
ances and foods and other things needed. He should
visit the club grounds often and superintend the game-
keeping and all work on the preserve, including the
planting of grain. He should recommend the employ-
ment of additional labor and make reports to the board
about the progress of the work. All expenditures of
money should be advised by the executive committee be-
fore being acted upon by the board. The compensation
of the managing director should be fixed by the board.
The executive committee should receive their necessary
expenses when visiting the preserve on business for the
benefit of the association.

The shooting leases should provide that the exclusive
right to shoot and fish on the lands and waters leased be
granted to the club for a period of years. Five or ten
years is the term often agreed upon. It is advisable that

TO FORM A DUCK.CLUB, OR SYNDICATE 111

the leases should contain a privilege of purchase at a
fixed price. Often the land owners reserve the right to
sell the land and to cancel the leases if a purchaser is se-
cured. Where such provisions are incorporated in a
lease the club should reserve the right to purchase at the
price offered, and the owner should agree to first offer the
land to the club.

The leases often contain covenants that the farmers
will prevent trespassers from trespassing, or aid the club
in so doing, and that prosecutions for trespass may be
conducted in the name of the land owner or in the name
of the club.

The leases often provide for the privilege of renewal at
a fixed price. They should be recorded in States where
the recording of leases for a term of years is required by
law, and the lease should, of course, be drawn in corform-
ance with the laws regulating conveyances, which vary in
the different States. The form adopted should be ap-
proved by a local attorney, who should act as the legal
advisor of the syndicate.

The publishers of The Amateur Sportsman have made
arrangements to furnish information on all subjects re-
lating to the organization of a game syndicate, including
the forms for subscription contracts, the employment of
gamekeepers, the selection of a site, the procuring of
stock birds and eggs, and anyone interested in the sub-
ject will receive a prompt answer to a letter requesting
information about any of these subjects.

In some localities the conditions are far more favorable
for starting a game syndicate than they are in others, not
only on account of the desirability of the ground, but also
on account of the attitude of the residents towards those

112 TO FORM A DUCK CLUB; OR SYNDICATE

who undertake to breed game. These are many matters
which should be carefully considered before a game club
is organized.

The numerous game protective associations, which
have been formed to procure game laws and to see that
they are executed, might well favor game syndicates and
undertake the practical increase of game in order to pro-
vide good shooting for their members. The gun clubs,
also, which are formed to provide shooting at inanimate
targets, easily might become game clubs and provide
good field shooting for their members.

The “appetite for legislation’* in America nowhere is
more enormous than it appears to be among those who
are organized to restrict the taking of the wild food birds.
As a result of this insatiate appetite North America has
a thousand more game laws than any country which has
game. Many ridiculous crimes have been created which
do not rest on any legal principles, and the number of
new laws and new crimes which annually are enacted and
created is positively appalling.

It will be found quite as easy for the trap shooters to
have good duck shooting as it is for them to have good
shooting at clay targets. The members of the protective
associations will find it easier to secure good bird shoot-
ing than it is to procure new game laws, and when the
value of the meat secured is taken into consideration
good sport appears to be within the means of anyone who
is willing to do something practical.

The trouble in America heretofore has been that there
has been no knowledge of the subject. The “more game”

*The Hon. Woodrow Wilson is reported to have coined this happy
phrase.

TO FORM A DUCK CLUB, OR SYNDICATE 113

clubs which are now being organized soon will be able
to furnish accurate figures as to the cost of good shoot-
ing, and when the owners of game are permitted to sell
some of the birds reared, during a long open season, I
have no hesitation in saying that excellent duck shooting
will cost little or nothing.

The reader has observed, no doubt, that no provision is
made for the expenses of a club house. These may be
made to suit the members of a syndicate if a farm house
be rented or if a club house be erected. The sportsmen
who go to shoot on unpreserved marshes usually board at
a country hotel or gunning house, and the members of a
syndicate easily can arrange to put up at a country hotel
in the vicinity of their shooting ground, provided it be
impractical to go and return the same day. I visited a
preserve near New York recently and saw some fine duck
shooting. A good bag was made. The sportsmen all left
the city at noon and returned within an hour after dark.
The chief advantage of looking after the game properly is
that good shooting can be had in convenient locations
where at present there is no game.

Every game club, or syndicate, should keep a game reg-
ister, in which should be entered the names of the various
species of game and the number taken by each gun. Some
of the clubs have the names of the game printed across
the top of the page, and the names of the sportsmen are
entered at the left hand side of the page, and the number
of each species of game taken is placed under the printed
heading designating the species. The form of game reg-
ister used at some of the American duck clubs is printed
in “Our Feathered Game.”

XV

THE RESTORATION OF WILD FOWL—LURING
DUCKS AND GEESE

NYONE who has traveled much must have observed
that there are thousands of small ponds, lakes and
streams in America where the wild ducks are seldom, if
ever, seen. Many of these waters are attractive to fowl,
since their natural foods are plentiful, and unattractive
waters can be made attractive in the manner heretofore
described. In the vicinity of the duck clubs often there
are places where the ducks can be lured as described in
this chapter, and sportsmen of small means easily can
form syndicates, or clubs, and at a small expense per
gun they can have good duck shooting during a long
open season. It is necessary, of course, to employ a
gamekeeper and to control the enemies of the ducks and
to provide quiet nesting places where trespassers can-
not enter to drive the ducks away.

The ducks from the club grounds as well as migratory
ducks soon will visit such places, and the fowl easily may
be lured from the neighboring marshes.

I wish to invite the reader’s attention especially to the
fact that no one will be damaged, provided the ducks be
lured and restored to places where they no longer occur
and that the laws should favor such industry.

114

THE RESTORATION: OF WILD FOWL. 115

Mr. De Visme Shaw in discussing this subject says:
“We now come to the question of luring wild duck to
frequent a certain piece of water as a feeding spot and to
afford sport at flight time. When practiced near a part
of the coast or any inland district frequented by duck,
the system I am about briefly to describe invariably com-
mands success.

“There must be a pond, either natural or artificial, to
serve as the home of the decoy ducks. Though quite a
small piece of water will answer the purpose in view, it
is advisable that the pond be not less than a quarter of
an acre in extent, while half an acre is better. A perfect
pond can be made at small expense by cutting a pass
athwart a marsh dyke. There should be some rough
cover dotted around the water; the bank should shelve
gently and should be of considerable area. It is here
that corn is scattered, and it is one’s object to ensure
that the decoy birds and birds flighting early shall be
unable to clear up the food before the advent of late ar-
rivals. Scattering grain thinly over a wide surface
achieves this end.

“The decoy birds may be either a cross between the
common’ game duck and the mallard or a further cross
having the halfbred bird as one parent and the pure mal-
lard as the other. I consider the former preferable when
one’s pond is within or near to a locality frequented by
wild birds and the latter when it is more or less remote
therefrom.

“The greater the proportion of domestic blood the
stronger the attachment to home; the greater the propor-
tion of wild blood the wider the range of the birds and
the better the prospect of establishing leads from a dis-

116 THE RESTORATION OF WILD FOWL

tance. The ducklings should be placed on the pond at
the age of eight or nine weeks. Never allow these decoy
birds maize, as the food makes them too fat and hence
disinclined to fly far on their own accord. If the pond
be situated in a district where mallard breed, efforts
should be made, by scattering wheat thinly over the feed-
ing ground, to induce wild birds to frequent the pond as
soon as the young are able to fly. When one has to rely
on migrants alone early October is soon enough to aban-
don feeding after the ordinary manner in favor of scat-
tering the corn over a wide area. The decoy ducks
should be kept very tame.”

Mr. Shaw describes the shooting of the birds which
are drawn nightly to visit the pond as follows:

“A quarter of an hour or so before what you calculate
to be the beginning of flight time, on the day arranged
for the beginning of operations, give your decoy birds a
full feed. Then let a dog put them roughly on the wing,
a shot or two being fired as they are leaving the pond.
They will not go far, and, having been disturbed in this
manner, and having had their hunger quite satisfied,
they will seldom return at the flight. The guns are then
to take their places in the blinds. Repeat these proceed-
ings every time of shooting. Not till the flight is quite
over must there be made any attempt to gather the duck
which fall. Mark them, by sound if not by sight, as
carefully as possible, and let the dog retrieve them after-
wards. ‘As long as a lead remains unbroken sport may
be had throughout the season. It should be made a rule
never to shoot more often than once a week. * * * Ducks
which have been shot at or have had their companions
shot at a few times will often come in high over the pond

SHEPRESTORATION OF “WILD FOWL . 117

and drop to the water almost like stones. Such should
be roused again directly they reach the water, when they
are almost certain to give one of the guns an easy shot.
So simple and so effective is the plan of obtaining tip-top
flight shooting that one often wonders at the lack of en-
terprise on the part of owners of water naturally suited
to its practice in so seldom putting it into effect.”

The State game officers evidently cannot provide good
duck shooting on the marshes which are now owned by
individuals, and they have done nothing towards restor-
ing the fowl to places which have been shot out. It
would seem impossible for the State to introduce the
ducks on ponds which are overrun by trespassers and by
vermin wild and tame.

The State game officers might easily breed thousands
of wild fowl on ponds owned by the State, and the ducks
thus produced should be distributed as stock birds to
those who will agree to look after them properly and to
increase their numbers. The more capable game officers
throughout the country now favor the profitable breed-
ing of game by game farmers and preservers. They
know that such industry should not be prevented by
laws which shorten the season, limit the bag and pro-
hibit the sale of desirable food.

In Massachusetts many wild fowl are lured to ponds
by trained decoys which are taught to fly out over the
water. The geese and duck decoys are bred near the
ponds, but the breeding of ducks in large numbers for
sport has been undertaken only on a few preserves in
Massachusetts. The shooting of wild fowl over trained
decoys seems to be a sport peculiar to Eastern Massa-
chusetts alone. It is done for the most part in the ponds

18 THE RESTORATION OF WILD FOWL

of Norfolk, Plymouth and Barnstable Counties. Mr. Ware
says: “Barring one stand near Portland and one on the
shores of Quincy Bay by salt water, I know of no other
places outside of this comparatively small district where
wild fowl are taken in this way, but from Ponkapog,
hardly a dozen miles from Boston, a skirmish line of
shooting stands on the shores of the diifferent ponds
stretches across the path of the Southerly migration of
the birds as far east as Wellfleet far out on Cape Cod.

“The best opportunities usually come when the birds
have been driven off their outside course by the heavy
North Easterly storms of the Fall and early Winter,
which send them inland, heavy winged and astray. .. .
This is without doubt the spot they have sought, and,
honking and quacking in grateful salutation, they set
their tired wings and circle down. The sounds of wel-
come redouble in volume as they approach the surface
of the pond, and in a moment, as if unable longer to await
their coming, a flock of earlier arrivals in that haven of
refuge swings out from the shadow of the woods like a
committee of reception to greet them.”’*

Mr. Ware regards the geese as far more interesting
than the ducks and says many of the birds develop
marked individualities of their own in addition to the
habits common to all of them.

“The goose ‘callers’ are either wild birds which have
been captured and domesticated or birds more than a
year old born in captivity from wild stock. The ‘flyers’
are born in captivity, of course, and the keeping up of the
supply of goose ‘flyers,’ the most picturesque element in

*“Tn the Woods and on the Shore.” By Richard H. Ware. L. C. Page
& Co., Boston.

THE RESTORATION OF WILD FOWL 119

the whole sport to my mind, is the greatest difficulty
connected with it. Apart from the raids of rats and
skunks upon the young birds, the reasons for this are
two—the apparent weakening of the ‘life force’ in Sha-
vian terms in the birds born in captivity, so that mating
is the exception rather than the rule among them, pos-
sibly because the field of natural selection is limited to
the few rather than the many, and the fact that both
goose and gander, once mated, are faithful in bereave-
ment forever after.t This is doubtless highly creditable
to the birds, though it has been suggested that this was
the true reason of their being called geese, but it is equal-
ly inconvenient to their owners.’’*

*“In the Woods and on the Shore.” By Richard H. Ware.
t See statement of Warren R. Leach, contra, in the chapter on Wild
Geese.

XVI
WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES

HE reader no doubt wishes to know how wild ducks
can be shot on small preserves without driving
them away. When I first learned that they were pre-
serving wild ducks in England I wondered how the fowl
could be kept at home or within reasonable bounds after
the shooting began, but some simple experiments which
I made with mallards and dusky ducks, after I had
studied the English methods as described in the maga-
zines, soon satisfied me that the problem is as easy of
solution as standing an egg on end is when one knows
how.

The secret of success lies in keeping a pond or small
stream absolutely safe and attractive at all times, so that
when the ducks are disturbed and shot at when they fly
about they will at once seek the safe refuge and remain
there. They will do this, provided the food supply, natu-
ral or artificial, and the cover are satisfactory. Some birds,
of course, may desert in company with strange ducks
which visit the preserve, but the game consists in mak-
ing the place so attractive that the visitors will be in-
clined to remain instead of taking the home birds away
with them. A correspondent of The Shooting Times and

120

WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES 121

British Sportsman says: “There are very few shoots,
possessing water in the shape of a lake or pond, on which
wild duck are not now reared, but we hear that trouble
and disappointment are caused by the duck deserting.
This cannot altogether be prevented with any birds al-
lowed the free use of their wings, but if it occurs whole-
sale, there is something wrong as regards management.
The general practice is to cram the duck with food all
day and leave them without any at night, which is a com-
plete reversion of their habits, as it is their custom to
rest during the day and feed after dark. The really wild
duck feeds to some extent during the day, but not like
it does at night. If the duck are only supplied with a
light meal during the day, and given a heavy feed just as
darkness is setting in, nothing will tempt them to desert,
for they are only liable to fly off at flight time.

“In a district close by the sea, or in other localities fre-
quented by wild duck, those hand-reared must be watched
closely, as it is the wild birds which decoy them away.
The aim of readers should be to tempt the strangers to
remain with the hand-reared duck, and this they are
willing to do if privacy can be arranged. There is. sel-
dom any difficulty in inducing them to stay on a se-
questered piece of water. The really wild duck appear
among the hand-reared ones at night, flying down to
them owing to their calling, and if our advice to scatter
plenty of feed at dark has been followed, there should be
attraction for the visitors to stay. Otherwise, the birds
will soon leave for the feeding grounds and take with
them some of the hand-reared duck. Even greater care
must be observed at pairing time, for then the wild drakes
do their utmost to decoy the females away, but if they

122 WILD DUCK SHOOTINGION PRESERVES

can be induced to remain, there is little fear of inbreed-
ing.”

The shooting should be done before the ice forms, at
which time or soon thereafter the ducks naturally are
inclined to go South. Since the young of some species
of ducks are fully grown and fly well by the last of Au-
gust, the season should be made a long one.

I have shot many young ducks which were bred about
the prairie ponds in several States when I was shooting
prairie chickens in August and September, and those
who undertake to save the wild fowl and to increase their
numbers in the prairie States should save and multiply
the grouse at the same time and have a variety of shooting.

The pond in Colorado (described in a former chapter)
where the owner entertains hundreds of ducks near his
house fairly represents one part of a good duck preserve,
for which the owner acts as gamekeeper. The reader
will remember that the ducks left this pond often to visit
a lake and that some of them were shot as they passed
overhead in going to the lake and when returning. Some,
no doubt, were shot on the lake. Had those who did the
shooting been permitted to disturb the fowl at will and to
arrange their blinds so as to get the best shooting as the
birds departed or returned, they would have had an ex-
cellent game preserve at very little trouble and expense.
There would be no danger of driving the ducks away,
provided the shooting be not done too often.

If the general public had been permitted to surround
the little pond near the house and to bombard the ducks
at all hours of the day the ducks would have deserted
the place, and it would remain as desolate as the ponds
are in New England and in other settled regions.

WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES 123

On some of the small preserves where the ducks fly
quickly out of bounds the shooting cannot be long con-
tinued or done oftener than once a week, since the ducks
are disturbed by the firing near their safe refuge and soon
become afraid to venture down to it.

We have, however, an abundance of room in America,
and since the lands suitable for ducks are inexpensive
many preserves can be started quickly and cheaply.
When the ducks have several waters, a half mile or more
apart, it will be an easy matter to have good flight shoot-
ing and at the same time to keep the birds within bounds.
They will return to the safe pond when shot at, and, of
course, they should not be too often driven out of it.
There is more danger of the ducks becoming too tame
where they are properly looked after than there is of
their deserting.

The methods of preserving wild ducks and of shooting
them on very small preserves may seem to be artificial.
They are, more or less so, necessarily, but on large places
the shooting need not differ much, if any, from the shoot-
ing at wild ducks in any good duck region. The shoot-
ing will be flight shooting at birds passing overhead, and
the birds reared on the place, if they be properly handled
and not overfed, will travel as fast and as high as the
wildest ducks which come to join them at the times of
the annual migration. Those who would criticise the
shooting on preserves as artificial should remember that
the duck shooting, which they enjoy, over decoys, is even
more artificial, since the game is lured to the guns by the
live or artificial decoys, and the shooting is far easier
and, to my mind, far less interesting than the shooting
at the swifter marks is.

124 WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES

Where many ducks are encouraged to breed wild on
the preserve the gunner can seldom tell if he is shooting
at a hand-reared fowl or at one that has been bred in the
marshes, provided always that the first named be not
made too fat and lazy by overfeeding to fly well.

The reader should remember that it is an easy matter
to domesticate certain species of wild ducks, especially
the mallard and dusky ducks, the birds most used on
preserves for hand-rearing, and that tame and overfed
ducks are of little more value from a sporting viewpoint
than ducks which have deserted the preserve never to re-
turn. It requires good judgment on the part of the game-
keeper to keep his ducks fairly wild and strong on the
wing and at the same time to keep them within bounds.

On some of the small shoots in England the ducks are
kept more tame than they should be on a larger area.
The shooting sometimes is highly artificial. The ducks
are handled in various ways so as to bring them to the
guns continuously in small numbers.

The most artificial method of all, no doubt, consists in
catching the ducks in the wire traps referred to else-
where and in taking them to a distance from their pond
and there releasing them singly and in pairs and small
companies at short intervals. When the ducks are taken
beyond a wood or strip of timber they must ascend to
pass over it, and they will fly high in coming to the pond.
In some places they are released from a hill or other ele-
vation. I know a gamekeeper who can give a line of
guns equally good shooting from a row of blinds placed
about two gunshots or a little more apart. He has sey-
eral ponds back of the shooting stands, and a good sized
flock of ducks is reared on each pond. When the birds

WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES 125

are liberated they spread out in returning to their dif-
ferent ponds, and in this way ducks are made to pass
over all of the guns in nearly equal numbers.

I much prefer the shooting of wilder birds on the duck
pass and jumping them from before a boat, pushed
through the wild rice; but each to his taste. The time
for criticising the conduct of others as a means of in-
creasing the game has passed. Almost everything that
anyone could think of has been tried as a restrictive game
law, and for good scientific reasons the laws have failed
to stay the decrease of the game appreciably in settled
regions.

The increase of game should be encouraged by every
possible means, and we should always remember what
one does in one way another may prefer to do in another
and that everything making for the increase of game and
sport is desirable and much needed.

We should always bear in mind the fact that the over-
flow of game from places where it is abundant is highly
beneficial to those who do nothing towards aiding the
good work of propagation. Many a stray duck will be
shot outside of the game farms and preserves when these
places are numerous, and this is the shooting I like best.

Near a duck preserve where many ducks are shot every
season I learned that the gunners in the vicinity had
some shooting at the ducks beyond the limits of the pre-
serve which they certainly would not have had in the
absence of the preserve, since no ducks ever were reared
in a wild state in the locality and the place is out of the
line of flight of the migratory fowl. There is no danger
of our having too many preserves. They are more bene-
ficial to free sport than game refuges.

126 WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES

A few days ago I witnessed a shoot on a preserve not
far from New York where wild ducks are artificially
reared. There were six guns in the party and several of
them undoubtedly were good shots, but they made many
misses since the ducks were very wild and flew high and
fast as they came to the guns over the tops of the trees,
behind which they were stationed. I endeavored to keep
an account of the number of shots fired in order to ascer-
tain how many cartridges were used for each duck
bagged. It was evident at the outset that from five to
ten shots were being fired for each duck killed, but the
shooting became very rapid at times and it was impossi-
ble to do more than to roughly estimate the proportion
of shots and ducks. During the shooting about sixty-
five mallards were bagged, and I am quite sure at least
six hundred, and probably more, shots were fired.

Although I do not especially care for this kind of shoot-
ing, or, in fact, for any kind of shooting from ambush,
since I much prefer to ramble about with dogs, and I care
nothing for big bags, I must admit that the shooting at
the mallards, which I observed, was as difficult as any
shooting I had ever had or seen on a duck pass, and far
more difficult than shooting over dogs is, excepting, pos-
sibly, the shooting in heavy cover.

Comparing the shooting at the hand-reared fowl with
the shooting of wild bred ducks over decoys one is
forced to admit that the last named seems like a child’s
play. It is by far the easier shooting.

The ducks were in fine condition and on previous days
I was informed the bags were somewhat larger. Several
hundred ducks were shot during the week and some of
them were sent to market, very properly. Since every .

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WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES 127

duck was observed, as it fell, and was quickly gathered,
the element of cruelty, which some people who are op-
posed to field sports object to, was practically elimi-
nated. The sportsmen spent an agreeable and exciting
day in the open air; the cool breezes gave them the good
color which indicates health, and since the game they
killed is edible there should be no possible objection to
the sport which induced them to spend the day in the
country. ;

The guns and ammunition were the best that could be
purchased, and some very long shots were made which
killed the game instantly. Having passed the guns the
ducks circled about and dropped into the pond beside
which they were reared and I was surprised to observe
how few of them left the preserve, which is not a large |
one. About a half dozen mallards were bagged by out-
siders shooting at the border of the preserve, and they,
too, fired ten and probably twenty shots for each duck
secured. They were shooting heavy loads of No. 4 shot.

Although the birds were comparatively tame, when I
observed them during the breeding season, as all game
is when it is not disturbed, everyone who observed their
swift and high flight admitted that the shooting was
fully as difficult as the shooting at wild bred birds ever
is, and far more difficult than it often is.

XVII
DISEASES OF WIED DUCKS

ILD ducks, autochthonic birds, are little subject to
disease. They are more easily reared than pheas-
ants.* The gamekeepers in America have been remark-
ably successful in rearing wild ducks in large numbers;
often on very small artificial waters. Excepting one in-
stance (when, unfortunately, the cause of the disease was
not ascertained, but which was due probably to the feed-
ing), | have never heard of any losses due to disease.
The young ducks should have shade as well as sunlight.
Ducks hatched late in the spring or in the early summer
do not thrive as well as those hatched earlier. This, no
doubt, is on account of the hot weather which they en-
counter at an early stage of their existence when they are
hatched late, and when the ducks are exposed to too much
sun or heat they have a complaint which some duck rear-
ers term “straddles.” They go stumbling about as if they
were dizzy and soon die. This is thought to be akin to
what we call sunstroke, if not identical. I had a young,
late hatched brood of mallards which were thus affected,
and since I did not know the cause of the trouble I moved
the hen and coop out to a sunny field where I thought

*“Wild Fowl.’ By L. H. De Visme Shaw. Fur Feather and Fin Series.
128

DISEASES OF WILD DUCKS i29

the insects might be more plentiful than they were in
the barnyard, but the sun was very hot there, and one
after another the young ducks began to stagger about,
and within a few days they all died. I have no doubt
that I could have saved these birds by rearing them in
the shade.

The Rev. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, F. Z. S., in an
article in The Shooting Times and British Sportsman,
says:

“Wild ducks suffer from diseases like other birds.
Enteric troubles follow on dirty or stale feeding, espe-
cially on overcrowded ground or waters. Ophthalmia is
a constant source of loss, where foul heads are allowed
from dirty feeding ways, or pans, or ground. Proper
muddy water, with sand and grit, as suggested in this
article, will practically rid ducks of this trouble. Lice,
too, may trouble them, but mercurial ointment or insect
powder will soon destroy these pests. Sunstroke, or
‘splanders,’ is very common with young ducks in bright
summer weather, but shade and muddy water will keep
them in health, or soon put them right, if they are pro-
vided beforehand, or at once upon the appearance of this
trouble. A disease of the lungs and liver, new to science,
which is very deadly, and common alike to grown ducks
and fowls, I have met with, but as yet am not in a posi-
tion to give advice about it.”

The records from the English preserves indicate that
the diseases referred to seldom make their appearance
and sustain Mr. Shaw’s statement that wild ducks are
easily reared.

Last season (1910) many wild ducks died in Utah
(where, I believe, no artificial rearing has been under-

130 DISEASES’ OF WILD, DUCKS

taken), evidently from disease, and Mr. Chambers, the
State Fish and Game Commissioner, sent some of them
to the Bureau of Animal Industry of the U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture in order to learn, if possible, the na-
ture of the disease: “The report, made by Wir.
Mohler, Chief of the Division of Pathology, is interesting
to sportsmen and scientists, but the cause of the disease
does not seem to have been discovered. The report is as
follows:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Oct. 22, 1910.

“Regarding ducks received from you, Oct. 11, through
the Bureau of Biological Survey, you are advised that
death was due to intestinal coccidiosis. The postmortem
examination showed the carcasses to be in good flesh.
The viscera were apparently normal, except the intes-
tines, which presented throughout the entire length more
or less extensive areas of inflammation. Microscopic ex-
amination of the intestinal contents revealed immense
numbers of coccidia in various stages of development.
Microscopic examination of the heart blood of these ducks
was negative in three cases. In one case the blood
showed in stained films paired rods with rounded ends,
somewhat larger than B. coli, also filament and chain for-
mation. The inoculation of a pure culture of this organ-
ism into a chicken was negative. The feeding of intes-
tinal contents to half-grown chickens gave negative re-
sults. Similar material inoculated into the back of a rab-
bit developed a small area of coagulation necrosis. The
death of the rabbit five days after inoculation was due to’
a severe intestinal and hepatic invasion of coccidia, but a
condition quite prevalent in rabbits and due to a cocci-
dium peculiar to that species of animal.

DISEASES OF WILD DUCKS 131

“It may be interesting to you to have the results of two
earlier investigations into the cause of death of the Salt
Lake City ducks. Two, received about Sept. 20, in such
a stage of decomposition that bacteriologic examination
was not feasible, gave marked evidences of inflammation
of the intestines and revealed in the intestinal contents
upon microscopic examination a large number cocci-
dial forms. In the case of two ducks received Oct. 5 from
Dr. F. E. Murray, inspector in charge at Salt Lake City,
the tissues had been so acted upon by the alcohol in which
they were shipped that all bacteriologic showings were
negative. These two birds were quite different from the
others, being extremely emaciated, and the alimentary
tract being absolutely devoid of contents from mouth to
vent. No coccidial forms were recognized in one of the
ducks, whereas in the other, which showed a marked en-
teritis, were found what were diagnosed as schizont forms
of the coccidium.”

A writer for Pearson’s Weekly says: “Wild ducklings
are much easier to rear than pheasants, being free from
the majority of pheasant ailments. In fact, when they
are a week or so old, they are able to do without the
warmth of their fostermothers. They must, however, be
protected from keen winds and hot sun. Without shade,
the little ducks are liable to die wholesale from sunstroke.
Some people call sunstroke ‘straddles,’ regarding it as a
mysterious disease of unknown origin, and assume that
to rear ducklings after May is to invite disaster. Pro-
vided with compulsory shade, ducklings will thrive all
through the summer. . . . A bag of one thousand ducks
is not rare nowadays. For three days in succession an
average bag of over fifteen hundred has been obtained -

‘

132 DISEASES OF WILD DUCKS

each bird taxing severely the skill of the shooters. Such
vast bags explain the absurdly low price for which a cou-
ple of the finest birds may be bought by anyone who cares
for a change from beef and mutton.”*

I have seen thousands of young wild ducks herded
closely on small rearing grounds and waters. The birds
were in excellent condition throughout the summer, and
all were strong on the wing in October and flew high
enough and fast enough to test the skill of the best shots.
It has been suggested that the fact that they may be kept
without harm in close quarters is due to their spending
much time on the water. The soil is not fouled to the
extent it would be by land birds.

*Ducks have been quoted in English market reports as low as 2 shil-
lings per brace. Captain Oates says that ducks in fine condition should
sell for 2 shillings each if sold at the right time. ‘‘Wild Ducks,” p. 57.
In an English market report for 1907 the game birds are quoted as fol-
lows: Pheasants, 4s 6d to 5s brace; partridge (young), 3s brace; part-
ridge (old), 1s 6d brace; hares (English), 2s to ps 6d each; leverets, 1s 6d
to 1s 8d each; wild duck, 1s 3d to 1s 6d each; pin-tail, 1s to 1s 2d each;
widgeon, 10d to 1s each; teal, 8d to 10d each; woodcock, 1s 6d to 1s 9d
each; snipe, 6d to 9d each. Supplies fair, but meeting a moderate demand.

XVIII
WILD GEESE

HE Canada wild goose, the common wild goose in
America, formerly was tremendously abundant
and visited the bays and marshes of both coasts in large
flocks on its Northern and Southern migrations. The
birds were equally plentiful in the interior, and nowhere
have I seen them in larger numbers than in the Missis-
sippi and Missouri valleys. The persistent shooting at
these big game birds during a long open season and the
destruction of their breeding grounds have caused a
marked diminution in their numbers. In many, places
they are no longer seen.

Since the wild geese are very wary birds and well able
to take care of themselves I am inclined to believe the
destruction of their breeding grounds is a more important
cause for their disappearance than the shooting is.

The wild goose has been domesticated easily, and I
have seen it breeding in many States from New England
and North Dakota as far south as North Carolina. The
birds reared in captivity are used, for the most part, for
decoys; in some places they are bred as ornaments for
ponds and lakes. A number of the game farmers can
supply breeding fowls and eggs. Mr. Whealton has

133

134 WILD GEESE

many wild geese on his wild fowl farm, at Chincoteague
Island, Virginia, and many of the clubs and many gun-
ners and baymen from Massachusetts south to Florida
can supply a few birds for propagation. I have seen the
geese breeding in Connecticut, quite near New York, and
Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton has a number of geese on
his lake at Cos Cob, Conn. His birds fly about the
neighborhood, but are quite tame and nest in safety.
They are properly looked after and fed. There are many
geese on Long Island, N. Y., which are quite tame. One
of the best flocks I ever saw is owned by Mr. Remsen,
who has a country place near Speonk, Long Island.

While the geese for the most part are used as decoys,
it seems likely they can be made a very good sporting
bird, especially in places where gamekeepers are em-
ployed. When game preserves become numerous they
will fly from one preserve to another, and I have no
doubt the shooting will be much improved on public
waters and that the markets will be full of wild geese at
reasonable prices.

Geese often do not mate or nest in captivity, and in
ordering them from game farmers the purchaser should
stipulate for mated birds. These command much better
prices than birds which are not mated. In Mr. Whealton’s
price list, for 1910, Canada geese, young pairs one to
three years old, are quoted at $6.50 per pair; mated pairs,
five years old, $10.00; breeders, ten to twenty years old,
$15.00 per pair.

The Canada goose lays from six to nine eggs, some-
times more when the bird is domesticated, and they are
a uniform ivory white. During July the young are
hatched and the old birds moult. This is a dangerous

(SSuLl[soy) oY} Pauny) OF UOTPLUIIOY, aI[} AION) ,
MYUOX MUN “MUVd IVUOINDO NI WSO CM ILAN

WILD GEESE 135

period for them, as their means of escape is limited to
hiding away in the marshes, at which they are very
skillful, or else keeping out in the center of lakes or
other large bodies of water. Many, however, are killed
at this period, and sometimes whole flocks are captured
alive, of which fact Hearne relates an instance when some
Indians drove into Fort Prince of Wales, on the Churchill
River, forty-one old and young birds which were in-
capable of flying, and which were herded as easily as if
they had been domesticated.* A game keeper undoubt-
edly can rapidly increase the numbers of the geese since
he protects them from their natural enemies.

Where only a few geese of one family, or closely re-
lated birds are held in captivity, it may be the geese do
not breed because they are too closely related and that
if the birds be given a wider field for selection they will
do better. I hope to make some experiments next season
with geese procured in Dakota and in New England and
Virginia and the reader who undertakes game preserv-
ing, no doubt, can make similar experiments to advan-
tage, not only with geese, but with several species of
ducks.

The Canada geese are long-lived birds. Mr. Whealton,
the largest breeder of wild geese in the United States,
says, in his circular that he has been breeding over fifty
years and some of his oldest breeders are well past the
half century mark. In breeding he has eliminated the
unfit, keeping only the best of his own for that purpose,
as well as adding each season the largest wild ganders
or “leaders” of the Canadas taken on the coast. He now
has over 500 geese “scattered around the island (Chin-
- *Wild Fowl of North America. D. G. Elliot. P. 58.

136 WILD GEESE

coteague), all pinioned when goslings or when captured,
but otherwise, at full liberty, for those which come from
such a long line of domesticated ancestry, once accus-
tomed to a place, will not run away.

“Canadas begin breeding at three or four years of age,
but their value as breeders increases definitely with age,
for young pairs are so erratic in this respect that I can
guarantee only my ten to fifteen year olds mated breed-
ing pairs, and these only I exchange if they do not breed
after the first year in their new surroundings. This will
explain the seeming disparity in prices of young and old
pairs; young pairs are suitable for decoys, etc., but
breeders who wish to get quick results know the value
of these old pairs. Canada geese are easily bred, if these
few essential requirements are observed:

‘“(1) The mated pairs should be in their breeding quar-
ters as early as possible before the laying season (March)
begins.

(2) Small knolls should be thrown up in the pond, two
feet above the water, or at the edge of the pond, and
some bushes stuck circularly around the tops which
should be flat and large enough for the nests.

“(3) The enclosure should contain a fresh water pond
of sufficient depth to permit their sexual intercourse
while swimming—usually they will not breed otherwise.

“(4) Immunity from disturbance by dogs, visitors, chil-
dren, etc., during the entire breeding period is very im-
portant.

“(5) Food: Corn alone is sufficient for the adult geese;
coarse yellow cornmeal for the wild goslings.”’*

*The reader should remember that Mr. Whealton’s birds have con-
siderable liberty and undoubtedly procure much natural food.

WILD GEESE 137

Mr. Whealton says the above applies as well to the
breeding of black and white swan, with the exception
that they may be purchased at any time except in the
coldest weather ; the white swan breed in the late spring
and the black Australians irregularly throughout the
year.*

Mr. Warren R. Leach, whose experience in the breed-
ing of wild water fowl (especially the Canada or common
wild goose) extends over a period of more than thirty
_ years, wrote for me the following account of breeding
wild geese in captivity, which I printed in The Amateur
Sportsman (June, 1910):

“Tt was some time in the seventies that my brother
called my attention to an advertisement of a party in Fort
Dodge, Ia., in one of the sporting magazines who offered
Canada wild geese for sale. Geese were then nesting
plentifully in parts of that State, and those offered for
sale were goslings captured from the adjacent sloughs. I
mention the pair which we purchased because of the fre-
quent statements made that wild geese mate for life. Un-
doubtedly this is ordinarily true, but there are exceptions.
This pair never nested, and we finally bought another
male and two females. The Iowa gander promptly se-
lected one of the new females for a wife, and they raised
young for years, while he drove his former mate out of
his sight at all times. She never mated again and was
evidently a barren goose, and the gander undoubtedly was
aware of it.

“In 1892 I obtained a large wild gander shot from a

*Mr. J. W. Whealton’s ‘‘List, Description and Prices.” This will be
sent to anyone on application to Whealton’s Wild Water Fowl Farm,
Chincoteague Island, Va.

138 WILD GEESE

passing flock. Several years afterward he mated with a
goose which laid and began sitting. He then went across
the ravine and escorted another goose to a promising site,
where she made a nest and also laid eggs.

“About this time I obtained a goose from my neighbor,
Mr. George E. Walker, and turned her out in the lots.
Imagine my surprise when the old Mormon took his third
wife, and they raised young ones the same season. This
mate he kept for years, and she was evidently his fa-
vorite.

“The present season I purchased a fine eight-year-old
pair of mated Canadas from a party on the Atlantic
coast which were until two weeks ago contentedly plan-
ning to raise their young. They sat by the hour on a
hummock and arranged the nest, then all at once there
was a disagreement in the family. The old fellow has
driven his wife from his bed and board and will not allow
her near him. She sits disconsolate by herself or wanders
away to the vicinity of the pen in which are the unmated
ganders, which run squawking to the fence to meet her.
Except in the three instances above cited I never knew
the mated pairs to be unfaithful among the full bloods,
although at the present time I have one old Canada gan-
der who has two wives—both tame geese—which have
separate nests, and the old fellow puts in all his time
guarding first one, then the other.

“In the nesting season it is imperative that the geese |
have water deep enough for them to swim, otherwise the
eggs will not be fertile. In small enclosures it is also
necessary to have a light but close fence between each
breeding pair since the ganders are exceedingly pugna-
cious, fighting all others near them and sometimes drag-

WILD GEESE 139

ging the females off their nests and driving them away.
It is rarely that they begin laying until three years old,
although I have known of one or two in recent years
which nested when two years old and raised young. The
first year wild geese lay four or five eggs, generally five,
and as they get older they will sometimes gradually in-
crease the number laid to six or eight eggs.

“The period of incubation is from twenty-eight to thirty
days, depending somewhat on the weather. When
hatched the old goose keeps the goslings in the nest until
the morning of the second day, when she leads them out
and carefully guides them to where they can pick the
fresh grass or weeds. No feed is required for the goslings
at any time if there is a pasture or grass lawn over which
they can roam. While I feed them grain it is merely
to make the geese gentle and to teach them to stay about
closer.

“All my young geese are pinioned when small. If this
is done before the wing feathers begin to grow there is
scarcely any bleeding from the operation. There are
three periods each year in which the domesticated wild
geese are disposed to wander away. Each spring and
fall as the flocks pass over in their migrations my birds
answer to the call of the wild. Gathering at one side of
the enclosure, they stretch their necks to the utmost.
Slowly they give out their gutteral notes, which gradually
are sounded faster and faster until finally, with discordant
cries and a beating of the air with their wings, they sweep
to the farther side of the pasture. Not deterred by the
failure to rise, they walk back and the performance is re-
peated again and again.

“There is another period when they seem impelled to

r

140 WILD GEESE

travel and this is in July, provided there are any broods
of goslings. Otherwise they do not seem to desire to go.
Many times have I watched them walk round and round
hunting for a loophole, and tight indeed must be the
fence if they do not find one.

“At this season their direction of travel is north-east-
erly, and I never found them going in any other. Why
they take this direction at this time has never been clear
to me.

“Wild geese are exceedingly afraid of dogs and will not
do well where disturbed by them. I once had one sitting
on seven eggs when a small dog came into the yard and
began playing, running in circles, each one larger than the
one before. Finally, in one grand rush, the goose was
just in line, and the dog, which had not seen her until the
last moment, jumped clear over her. The dog was so
scared he ran home, while the goose flapped screaming
from her nest and began running at top speed. She con-
tinued running and squalling for almost a day and a half
until she fell exhausted and died in a few minutes. This
goose was raised in captivity and used to dogs all the
nineteen years of her life, yet the sudden fright was more
than she could stand.

“In recent years I have found that one can get a second
clutch of eggs if the goose is shut out from the first nest
for a few days just when she begins to feather it. It is
thus possible to double the number of young raised each
year, which is indeed quite an item where space and the
number of birds kept does not permit of the slower way
of increasing the flock.

“Notwithstanding the fact that few geese are brought
to bag by the gunners of the present day, they are stead-

WILD GEESE 141

ily decreasing in numbers, although they are a long-lived
bird. My Canadas range in age from three years up to
an old mated pair that are twenty-four or twenty-five
years old.

“Mr. J. W. Whealton of Chincoteague Island, Virginia,
whom I consider the greatest breeder of Canada geese at
the present time, has made a complete success of it, and
some of his old mated pairs have been breeding for more
than fifty years. It is a matter of record that one old
gander in one of the New England States was eighty
years old when the owner killed it because it had become
‘mischievous.’

“Tn 1907 the writer spent the entire summer in Alaska,
and the geese were breeding by the thousands in the
swamps near the mouth of the Copper River. The young
were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Siwashes, eaten by the
vermin, which abounds there, and otherwise destroyed in
large numbers before they could fly. Some day in the
very near future we will see the great V shaped flocks no
more.

“Who has not felt a thrill as he read the lines of Bryant
in his ‘Ode to the Waterfowl?’ ‘All day at that far
height thy wings have fanned the cold, thin atmosphere,’
yet how few of the younger generation east of the Missis-
sippi River have seen them of recent years passing over,
high in air. But we are fortunate in that these noble
game birds will increase in captivity and still retain their
health and all their wild characteristics year after year.
There is no reason why under the wise provisions of the
proposed ‘breeders’ law’ they should not be found all over
our country, both for ornamental use, for sport and for
the market. Such legislation certainly will not decrease

142 WILD. GEESE

our game, but will greatly increase it. Let every one
join the ranks of those who are striving to save game
birds from the fate of the buffalo and the passenger
pigeon.”

The Canada goose breeds in the North, and the prin-
cipal breeding ground seems to be the region referred to
as the “ducks’ paradise.”

Mr. Cooke, who is an authority on the migration of
birds, says the principal summer home of the Canada
goose is the interior of Canada, from Saskatchewan and
Alberta north to the limit of trees. Eastwardly it breeds
commonly in the interior of Ungava and rarely on the
coast as far north as Okak and Ungava Bay. It is not
a rare breeder in Newfoundland, and is fairly common
on the islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and thence
west through Quebec and Northern Ontario to the south-
ern end of James Bay. Any occurrences south of this
district must be considered accidental or casual, though
it has been recorded as nesting at Lexington, Mass., April,
1888, and once at Hartland, Vt.

In the interior of North America the breeding range
extends somewhat farther south. A hundred years ago
the species bred commonly in all the northern third of
the Mississippi Valley and not uncommonly to the lati-
tude of St. Louis. Now the number of pairs breeding
south of the latitude of central Iowa is very small, though
even of late years the Canada goose has been known to
breed at Samburg and at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, which
seem to be the most southern localities known east of the
Rocky Mountains. A few breed in Kentucky, and the
number increases slightly in Indiana and Illinois and the
southern third of Michigan and Wisconsin. North of this

WIED GEESE 143

and throughout much of Minnesota the species is a regu-
lar and not uncommon summer resident. The Canada
goose formerly bred in Kansas; now it breeds rarely in
Nebraska and southern South Dakota; regularly in North
Dakota and northward. This species still breeds in the
northern third of Colorado, in northern Utah, northern
Nevada, southern Oregon and northward. A half century
ago it was recorded as breeding as far south as southern
New Mexico. The Western boundary of the breeding
range extends from the interior of British Columbia to
the upper Yukon and to Fort Yukon, with a few strag-
glers west to the Yukon mouth. The reader will find in-
teresting tables showing the dates of the arrival of the
Canada goose at various points along the Atlantic coast
and in the Mississippi Valley during its spring and fall
migrations, in a bulletin issued by the U. S. Biological
Survey.*

The Hutchins goose is similar to the Canada goose in
pattern, color and markings, but somewhat smaller. This
species is the most northern of the several forms of Can- |
ada goose and nests from Melville Peninsula north to
latitude 70° and west along the shores and islands of the
Arctic coast to the mouth of the Mackenzie and through
the interior of Alaska to the Kowak River. Apparently
it does not breed in the interior of North America south
of the Barren Grounds, but on the Pacific coast it breeds
in the valley of the Kowak River and south to the mouth
of the Knik River; also abundantly in the western Aleu
tian and on the Near Islands.+

*“TDistribution and Migration of North Am. Ducks, Geese and Swans.”
By Wells W. Cooke. Bulletin 26, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr.

6 Ib.

mien

144 WILD GEESE

Other American wild geese are the Cackling goose, a
bird very similar to the Canada goose, only smaller; the
Emperor goose; the three Snow geese, which are white
as the name indicates; the Blue goose; the American
White-fronted goose and the two Brant. All of these
birds breed in the North beyond the limits of the United
States, and comparatively little is known about the
breeding habits of some of them.

Mr. Whealton says the Brant goose thrives in captivity
and he has never lost one by disease. Laying only in the
farthest North, no degree of cold found in our latitudes
affects them, while they endure our summers like tropical
fowl.

The reader will find all of the geese pictured and de-
scribed in my book, “Our Feathered Game.” Their dis-
tribution and migration is exhaustively discussed by Mr.
Wells W. Cooke in his bulletin, to which I have re-
ferred.*

The geese, excepting the Canada goose, have not been
bred in preserves.

* “Our Feathered Game.’’ New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons. Bulletin
26, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr. See also Eliot’s “Wild Fowl of
North America.”

XIX
THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS

LTHOUGH the shorebirds cannot be artificially
reared on game farms and preserves as the upland
game birds and some of the wild ducks are, much can be
done to increase their numbers when breeding wild. Safe
nesting places can be provided for the woodcock, snipe,
plover, sandpipers and the other species of waders which
nest in the United States and Canada, and it is evident
that the birds will become more abundant in places where
their natural enemies are controlled and where dogs,
cats, rats and trespassers are excluded than they are in
places where they receive no protection of any kind ex-
cepting that afforded by game laws which are not ex-
ecuted. I have observed many species of shorebirds
breeding abundantly on preserves where the wild ducks
are looked after properly, and they evidently respond
nicely to the protection extended to the ducks.

The enemies, furry and feathered, which destroy other
game destroy also the shorebirds, or waders, and the
common house cat alone is sufficient to prevent an in-
crease of the woodcock in many places. When a game-
keeper persistently controls the enemies of the wild
ducks or of the true game birds on the upland he neces-

146

146 THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS

sarily saves many woodcock in wooded regions where
they occur, and even in many small swamps where there
are alders, willows or other trees. The snipe and some
of the plover formerly nested in many marshes which
are suitable for ducks.

At some of the duck clubs where wooded lands adjoin
the marshes I found many woodcock, and on the open
marshes I saw many snipe, all of which had been bred
within the preserves. The exclusion of trespassers alone
is of great benefit during the nesting season, and at the
duck clubs the snipe often become numerous and very
tame. Many of the gunners prefer to shoot the larger
ducks and the snipe often are not shot at all.

At one club I saw large numbers of snipe and several
species of plover, yellow-legs and other waders, and I
have never seen game birds so tame as these birds were,
even on the frontier in the days when the gunners shot
big game only.

Those who are inclined to oppose the preserves for
selfish reasons do not realize that large numbers of mi-
gratory wading birds as well as fowl are reared on pre-
serves and that they must furnish good shooting for
some one when they migrate Southward in the autumn.
Were it not for the preserves and posted farms our game
would have vanished far more rapidly than it has, and
those who have studied the situation know well that all
game must be properly looked after and given a chance
to multiply or it will vanish from the earth, provided
field sports be not absolutely prohibited. Even the pro-
hibition of sport cannot save some of the most desirable
species. There will be, always, some illegal shooting, and
the cats alone, in farming regions, upset nature’s balance.

IIPINUS “MH AG Aq WRG oFTT
MODOJVGOOM

THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS 147

In England, plover eggs are gathered yearly in large
numbers and sold in the markets without apparently
causing a diminution in the number of these birds. In
America the naturalists and sportsmen agree that the
upland plover, and some of the other waders, are nearing
extinction.

Preserves for upland game and for wild ducks un-
doubtedly will save these birds just as the English pre-
serves have saved the English woodcock and other wad-
ers. Since it is evident that it cannot be long before
there will be no shorebird shooting for anyone, all preju-
dice against the individual handling and preservation of
game should vanish. There is no danger of our having
too many preserves; the country is too big. The danger
is that we will not have enough of them in time to save
the vanishing game.

The woodcock is one of our most valuable wild food
birds, and it is especially interesting to sportsmen. A\I-
though it is an easy matter to restore the grouse, quail
and many of the most desirable species of wild fowl and
to make them more plentiful than they ever were on suit-
able ground, it is impossible to purchase woodcock and
turn them down in the covers where they have been ex-
tirpated or even to feed them as upland game is fed on
game farms and preserves. Many naturalists and sports-
men seem to believe that nothing can be done to save this
interesting bird excepting to enact additional laws re-
stricting the sport of cock shooting and prohibiting the
sale of the birds as food. Some entertain the opinion that
the woodcock is doomed to extinction.

In the year book of the United States Department of
Agriculture for 1901, Dr. A. K. Fisher, the ornithologist

148 THE SHOREBIRDS, OR (WADERS

of the Biological Survey, discussed “two vanishing game
birds—the woodcock and the wood-duck,” and his article
was issued by the department as a reprint, or bulletin,
and widely distributed. Unless strong protective meas-
ures are soon adopted, we are told, the woodcock and the
wood-duck, two popular and valuable game birds, will
become extinct. “In many places,” Dr. Fisher says,
“where twenty-five years ago a fair shot with a good dog
could secure forty or fifty birds in a day’s hunt, it is
doubtful if ten per cent. of the former bag could be ob-
tained.”

There are thousands of suitable covers from Maine to
the Mississippi Valley and as far West as Eastern Kan-
sas and Nebraska where not a single bird can be found
today at any season of the year, and the places where the
small percentage of birds named can be obtained are com-
paratively rare.

I have seen the woodcock as plentiful as Frank For-
ester says they were. The younger sportsmen cannot
imagine how abundant they were a few years ago in the
Mississippi Valley and, in Forester’s time, in the imme-
diate vicinity of New York City. Writing of the shoot-
ing in Orange County, N. Y., he says “the numbers I
have seen are incredible.” In 1839, shooting with Mr.
Ward, of Warwick, who weighed above three hundred
pounds and shot with a single barrelled gun, they bagged
in three successive days, fifty-seven, seventy-nine and
ninety-eight cock over a single brace of dogs, not begin-
ning to shoot until it was late in the morning. The fol-
lowing year, shooting with a friend from New York (with
muzzle loading guns, of course), the bag contained one
hundred and twenty-five birds the first day and seventy

THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS 149

birds the second morning, before noon, when the powder
and caps gave out.

Although it is a bird of moderate fecundity (the eggs
are seldom more than four), I believe it is possible to
make the woodcock as abundant as they ever were and
that this will be done in some localities within a very few
years. The prohibition of summer shooting undoubtedly
has produced good results, since it has checked the rapid
disappearance of the cock, but the shooting of an ever
increasing army of guns undoubtedly will prevent any
rapid increase of the game if it does not cause a steady
reduction in its numbers, and in places where the wet
woods are drained the birds, of course, must vanish. It
is well known, as I have observed, that where any species
of game becomes scarce its natural enemies become com-
paratively superabundant, and the result of such condi-
tions are disastrous even in the absence of any shooting.
As the country becomes settled the domestic enemies of
the woodcock—dogs, cats and rats—are added checks to
its increase, and nature’s balance is upset in the wrong
direction. Dr. Fisher, in the bulletin cited, says it is
probable that the cat, red squirrel, sharp shinned hawk
and mink are among the most important natural enemies
of the woodcock. To this list should be added some of
the other hawks, the crow, weasel, skunk, raccoon, jay,
snakes and owls. Dogs also, running at large, sadly in-
terfere with the nesting woodcock and destroy many
young birds, and rats are regarded by all gamekeepers
as among the worst pests.

I am told, repeatedly, that the natural enemies of
woodcock and other game were abundant when the game
was most plentiful. This is quite true, but it does not

150 THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS

disprove the fact that when the guns and the cats and
other domestic vermin are added to the ordinary checks
to increase, the game must diminish in numbers rapidly.
Mr. H. P. Clement, of Vermont, told me recently that he
saw a cat bring a woodcock up to the porch. My cat
brought in robins and a flicker, or golden woodpecker,
last summer and was very active until it lost its life
on account of the flicker. Cats have an open seanson
throughout the year, and the destruction of birds by these
animals is appalling. Their depredations can be stopped,
however, and they will be when it pays to do so. The
wilder enemies of the woodcock can be controlled, partly
at least (they never have been fully checked, even in Eng-
land), and the result of such control instantly will be
evident.

Not long ago I went to visit a game preserve a few
miles from New York City, where the wild ducks are tre-
mendously abundant, thousands of these birds having
been artificially reared by a Scotch gamekeeper last
spring. Asa result of the protection given to the ducks
the woodcock have returned in good numbers, and they
nested in perfect security last season in the little swamps
all over the preserve. The gamekeeper, in order to show
that a setter which he had been breaking was well trained,
took him into a little alder brake not far from the house,
and he pointed one woodcock after another in fine style.
A dozen or more birds were flushed on a very small area.
One of the birds was shot to prove that the dog would
retrieve it, which he did handsomely. I am quite sure
there would not -be a woodcock on the place were it not
for the practical protection afforded. The region is
thickly settled, and in the absence of a gamekeeper the

THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS 15t

ground would be overrun with stray dogs and cats, to
say nothing about trespassers. The place would be un-
tenable for nesting birds, and if any stopped to feed in
the autumn they would be shot to the point of extinction.
At the present rate of increase the birds on the preserve
soon should be as abundant as they were a little to the
northward, where Forester made the big bags I have
mentioned. Sportsmen should remember that in all
probability there would be no woodcock on the ground
for anyone in the absence of practical protection (for this
reason no one is damaged), and a good number of the
birds reared will migrate and afford sport on free terri-
tory. As the Game Commissioner of Colorado well said,
writing about the benefits of the preserve system which
is encouraged by sensible laws in Colorado, many guns
shoot on the preserve which otherwise would shoot on
the public range, and this is beneficial to the public game.
The markets also are filled with game without loss to the
game which is not properly looked after.

On some of the Western duck preserves I found the
woodcock, snipe and other waders breeding abundantly
because of the protection given to other game. A wood-
cock, flying across the track, was killed by a train in
front of the club house of the Redden Quail Club, in Dela-
ware, while I was sitting on the porch. At the duck clubs
I noted that the woodcock, snipe, yellow-legs and other
waders seldom were shot, since the owners of the pre-
serves are duck shooters.

On a nut plantation in Connecticut both quail and
woodcock breed every year because trespassers are kept
out, and the vermin is partially controlled by the nut
grower, who formerly was an ardent sportsman.

152 THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS

The woodcock are not found in the depths of large for-
ests, and the reduction of vast forested areas to small
wooded tracts, many of which contain swampy places
where the food of the woodcock abounds, increases the
area suitable for cock shooting.

The earth worm is the staple food of both the snipe
and the woodcock, and although, as I have said, it is not
practical to feed the woodcock, I can furnish a useful
hint for those who may undertake their practical salva-
tion—the natural food of the woodcock can be increased.

Often I have observed that the Wilson’s snipe were
plentiful in pastures and on wet prairies where cattle were
feeding. I was inclined to believe that the tramping of
the cattle made the ground especially suitable for the bor-
ing of the snipe in their search for food. I now believe
the manuring of the ground cates an increase in the
number of earth worms, and this fact seems to have been
proven by a California duck club which transformed a
salt marsh, where there were no snipe, into a good shoot-
ing place by damming out the salt water and manuring
the ground. The food for woodcock in small brakes
might be increased in the same manner... If the wet woods
be enclosed with a wire netting and some pools be made
it would be an easy matter to introduce the other “van-
ishing bird” mentioned in Dr. Fisher’s bulletin—the beau-
tiful wood-duck—and to make it abundant in the same
ground with the woodcock. The place should be kept
absolutely quiet during the nesting season, and all vermin
should be controlled. Arrangements have been made for
some very interesting experiments with these birds next
season on some good cock grounds very near New York
City.

THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS 153

All of the shorebirds, or waders, are pictured and de-
scribed in “Our Feathered Game,” and the reader will
there find a brief mention of their habitat. Like other
game birds, the shorebirds which formerly nested in any
locality are the easiest ones to restore and make abundant.
Many birds which never are seen at present will return
to safe nesting grounds when they learn that they will be
properly looked after and protected. If they appear in
small numbers they should be encouraged to remain and
nest.

The distribution and migration of the North American
shorebirds is exhaustively discussed by Mr. Wells W.
Cooke in Bulletin 35, Biological Survey, U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture.

The Wilson’s snipe, one of the most valuable shore-
birds for sporting and economic purposes, has been driven
away, like the ducks, from many localities, by the drain-
ing of the marshes. When it becomes known that the
snipe and ducks, which can be reared on many wet lands,
are worth more than any crop which can be produced on
the same ground, I believe some of the snipe lands will
be preserved for sport and for profit. The snipe breeds
in many of the Northern States, and the number of breed-
ing birds can be increased, undoubtedly, in places where
the snipe now nests. The breeding range of the snipe
and some other species possibly can be extended South-
ward by the practical protection which is extended by
gamekeepers.

The upland plover, or Bartram’s sandpiper, is one of
the best shorebirds for the table, and it is pursued eagerly
by sportsmen. It inhabits the plains, prairies and fields
and is seldom found near water. I have seen these birds

154 THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS

very abundant on the Western prairies, but, like the
prairie grouse, they have vanished absolutely from vast
regions and are never seen in many counties where they
once were most plentiful. Mr. Cooke says early in the
settlement of the Mississippi Valley much more than half
the upland plovers probably nested within the boundaries
of the United States. The center of abundance during
the breeding season was the prairie region from Kansas
to Manitoba. The numbers were not greatly diminished
so long as this region was used for stock purposes, but
recently the birds have rapidly decreased.

When it pays to preserve the prairie grouse the upland
plover will be protected undoubtedly, and many of these
splendid food birds can be shot by those who go afield
for the grouse. The upland plover once were abundant
in New England and on Long Island, N. Y. They will
return in increasing numbers when some of their nesting
grounds are preserved.

The three most valuable waders for sport are undoubt-
edly the woodcock, Wilson’s snipe and the upland plover,
and it is fortunate that these birds can be saved and made
abundant within the limits of the United States. The
larger plovers, sandpipers and curlews for the most part
breed north of the United States, but these birds and
many of the smaller species, which are not interesting to
sportsmen, will be much benefitted when game preserves
within our borders become numerous. They will find
safe refuges from persecution upon their Southern migra-
tion, since they will not be shot in large numbers in
places where the grouse, ducks, quail and other more de-
sirable game birds are plentiful. Some years ago when I
used to shoot ducks in North Dakota the yellow-legs,

THE SHOREBIRDS OR WADERS 155

golden plover and many other shorebirds were very
abundant. I shot several dozen of these birds one after-
noon beside a small lake, but when I returned to the army
post, where I was stopping, I found it impossible to give
them away. Larger game birds, including prairie grouse
and wild ducks, were very plentiful, and no one could be
found willing to pluck and cook the waders. For this
reason I ceased shooting them.

The same condition existed in the Eastern States when
the heath hens, wild turkeys and canvas backs brought
only a few cents in the markets. When we make the most
desirable game birds abundant and cheap the shorebirds
will be comparatively safe from harm in many places,
and they will be in no danger of extirpation.

XX
REMEDIAL

EFORE discussing the amendments to the game
laws which, in my opinion, are absolutely neces-
sary to make the wild food birds abundant and cheap in
the markets, I wish to say that I am not opposed to many
of the restrictive game laws now on the books. Laws
which shorten the season, limit the bag and prohibit the
sale of game tend to delay its extirpation, undoubtedly,
and they are necessary in places where no one looks after
the game properly. As the game vanishes it will be
necessary, from time to time, to increase the restrictions
of field sports and to prohibit shooting for periods of
years. The laws, however, can be amended so as to per-
mit and encourage the profitable breeding of game with-
out in any way interfering with the present laws restrict-
ing sport, and the result of such legislation will be bene-
ficial not only to game breeders but to those who do
nothing.

The present game laws, which prevent the breeding of
game on the farms and other private lands, are neither
uniform nor permanent. Any one who is familiar with
the legislation in any State must be aware that every
year (when the Assembly meets) many new bills regu-

156

ENGLISH WILD FOWLER, OR MARKET GUNNER

REMEDIAL 157

lating, and usually restricting, the taking of game are
introduced, and often many of them are enacted.

The Governor of a New England State informed me
not long ago that one-tenth of the legislation of his State
related to fish and game, and recently I read a magazine
article which contained the statement that about one-
half of the legislative work of a Western State related to
fish and game. About eighty new game laws actually
were enacted in North Carolina in 1909, and many more,
no doubt, were introduced, debated and rejected.

The industry of game law making seems to be on the
increase almost everywhere in the United States, and it
would seem absolutely ludicrous were it not for the fact
that a vast number of fanciful, petty crimes are created
which are not founded on the legal principles which
should underlie all criminal enactments.* The number
of crimes has grown so large that even the best lawyers
do not pretend to know them all.

The game birds evidently do not increase in numbers,
but, on the other hand, many desirable species seem to be
in danger of extirpation more and more as the new crimes
are made, and it is evident to all who are familiar with
the laws and with the condition of the game that our
game laws are not satisfactory.

The wild fowl, as I have observed, must diminish in
numbers in populous regions where the marshes are
drained and in all places where domestic vermin and
trespassers, in addition to the wilder enemies of the ducks,
prevent the ducks from nesting—no matter how many laws
restricting sport may be enacted. It is an easy matter, as I
have observed, for individuals to increase the numbers of

*See artiele on “Game Law Crimes” in The Independent, July 2, 1908.

158 REMEDIAL

both the wild fowl and the waders in places where the
natural conditions are favorable or where they are made
so by private effort. But no one can be expected to do
anything which does not pay. It is evident that the State
game officers cannot produce game to advantage on
private lands, where they are not even permitted to enter,
and that they cannot restore the wild fowl and waders to
public grounds and waters where the birds cannot nest
by reason of the want of the necessary seclusion and
safety.

The existing laws have failed not only to keep the mar-
kets full of game at reasonable prices, but also to afford
good sport for the sportsmen.

Game is a desirable food, and our wild birds are the
best in the world, both for the table and for sport. Not
long ago they were tremendously abundant, and I have
no doubt that some species can be and will be made far
more plentiful than they ever were and that they will
become an important part of our food supply.

A big economic question is presented, and it requires
an able statesman to handle it, since some small politi-
cians seem to believe that the game must be utilized to
produce a big revenue and positions for many office hold-
ers and that to change the system might be disastrous
from a political point of view. On the other hand, the
farmers and many intelligent sportsmen and naturalists
now entertain the opinion that the profitable increase of
game on private lands should be encouraged, and if the
issue ever is fairly presented I feel sure that the people
will pass upon it rightly at the polls.

In a number of States the State game officers seem to
have abandoned our indigenous game, and they are de-

REMEDIAL 159

voting their energies to the substitution of foreign spe-
cies, but without good results. It seems evident that
comparatively tame birds cannot be expected to survive
in places where the wilder birds, which are better suited
to their environment, have perished.

Admitting that the laws which shorten the season
limit the bag and prohibit the sale of game do some
good, since they delay the extirpation of our indigenous
wild food birds, we must also admit that the laws do
much harm since they practically prevent the profitable
increase of game by breeders. No one can be expected
to rear game so long as he is only permitted to take three
of his birds in a season and so long as he cannot safely
transport them or dispose of them.

The game laws appear to be especially inimical to the
farmers, since in many States they cannot either rent
their shooting to advantage nor sell any game which may
be produced on the farm. Since the farmers have the
right to exclude trespassers and are enforcing this right
in many places, it would seem desirable for sportsmen
as well as farmers to have the laws amended so as to
make it profitable to rear game on the posted farms.
Those willing to deal fairly with the farmers undoubtedly
can obtain permission to breed game on the farms and
when they do a large number of sportsmen will shoot on
places which are now closed to all shooting, and the
shooting on free territory will be benefitted.

A breeders’ law should be enacted in every State to
encourage the profitable breeding of game. It should
define the breeders, and they should secure a license from
the State game department permitting them to own the
game reared and to shoot it without restrictions during

160 REMEDIAL

a long open season and to sell all or any part of it to
licensed dealers under regulations which should provide
for the listing and identification of the game sold.

Such laws are easily executed in all countries which
have game, and the system has been found to work well
in Colorado and elsewhere in America where it has been
tried.

The able Game Commissioner of Colorado has well
said the sale of game and game fish from the licensed
parks and lakes in Colorado has put the market gunners
out of business, and the people are supplied with game
for their tables.

All naturalists, so far as I am aware, and most of the
intelligent sportsmen in America who have carefully
considered this important question have declared in fa-
vor of amendments to the laws permitting the profitable
increase of game by breeders. The Bureau of Biological
Survey of the U. S. Department of Agriculture favors
such legislation, and it seems probable that the laws soon
will be amended so as no longer to prevent the profitable
increase of a desirable food. I am firmly of the opinion
that in a very few years North America will become the
biggest game producing country in the world.*

*The history of American game laws and their merit and weakness, and
the needed changes in the laws are fully discussed in an article which I
wrote for The Cyclopedia of Agriculture, Vol. 4. The Macmillan Co., N. Y.

sojieng “yY “TY Aq Sutavip v wm01g

STIVIANId

APPENDIX

HE following accounts of the distribution and mi-
gration of the wild ducks which are desirable as
food were written by Wells W. Cooke, an assistant of the
Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture (pub-
lished as Bulletin No. 26.) The mergansers, scoters,
eiders, etc., are shot by gunners and sometimes eaten,
but they are not desirable as food and will not be bred
for sport or for profit. :

In his introduction Mr. Cooke says: “The economic
value and importance of the birds as food are very great.
The flesh not only is palatable and nutritious, but is so
different from that of domestic fowls as to form a most
welcome addition to the table of the rich and the poor.”

Those who undertake to propagate the species which
thus far have not been successfully bred on game farms
and preserves can study the breeding range of the various
species to advantage.

Ducks undoubtedly can be more easily reared in places
where they now occur, or where they nested formerly,
than in places remote from their habitat, but I have no
doubt the breeding range of many species can be much
extended by breeders and game preservers and that many
species which are not artificially reared may be success-

161

162 APPENDIX

fully handled; and if so the result of such industry will
be highly profitable.

Mr. Cooke says the principal causes of the diminished
numbers of water fowl have been market hunting, spring
shooting and the destruction of the breeding grounds for
farming purposes.

Market shooting safely can be resumed, of course,
when the birds are reared in large numbers, and the de-
struction of the breeding grounds can be prevented when
it appears that the duck crop is valuable. Spring shoot-
ing will not be done by breeders, of course.

The distribution and migration of the ducks desirable
for food as given by Mr. Cooke is as follows:

Anas boschas Linn. Mallard.

Breeding Range—The northern half of the United
States west of Pennsylvania, and the whole of Canada
west of Hudson Bay, constitute the principal breeding
range in the Western Hemisphere of the mallard—the
commonest duck on the North American continent and
probably in the world. In eastern North America the
place of the mallard is taken by the black duck, and the
former is rather rare, though a few breed in eastern On-
tario about Lake Erie, locally in western New York and
south to Maryland. Though unknown as a breeder on
the mainland east of Hudson Bay, the mallard is rather
common in Greenland, breeding north to Godthaab and
Angmagsalik and wandering to Upernavik. Throughout
New England and the Maritime Provinces it is a rare
migrant, and while some of the records of its breeding in
these districts may be correct, it is no more than a casual
summer resident.

APPENDIX 163

In the interior the breeding range extends regularly
south to latitude 41° and a few breed south to southern
Indiana, southern Illinois, central Missouri and southern
Kansas. The breeding range bends south in the Rocky
Mountains to southern New Mexico and on the Pacific
coast to Lower California (San Pedro Martir Moun-
tains.)

The breeding range extends north to Fort Churchill, to
the Arctic coast in the Mackenzie Valley and to Kotzebue
Sound and the Fur Seal Islands in Alaska.

The mallard is one of the earliest birds to breed. The
nesting season extends from early April in southern Cali-
fornia and the first week of May in northern Indiana, to
early June in the Mackenzie Valley and the Yukon Delta,
and the last week of June in Greenland.

It is one of the common ducks of the Old World, breed-
ing in the Northern Hemisphere and ranging south in
winter to central Africa and southern Asia.

Winter Range—The mallard is a fresh water duck,
and in general it winters as far north as open fresh water
is found. The greater number spend the winter in the
southern half of the Mississippi Valley, and for many
years this was the source of a large part of the market
supply. The numbers killed were almost incredible. Big
Lake, Arkansas, was and still is one of the favorite re-
sorts, and during the winter of 1893-94 a single gunner
sold 8,000 mallards, while the total number sent to mar-
ket from this one place amounted to 120,000. Fortu-
nately both Arkansas and Missouri now forbid market
shooting, and this deplorable slaughter has been de-
cidedly lessened.*

*The Biological Survey now favors the sale of game by breeders,

164 APPENDIX

This species winters casually in eastern Massachusetts
and central New York, accidentally in Nova Scotia and
regularly from Virginia to northern Florida. It is less
common in central Florida and has been recorded in the
Bermudas, Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada, Carria-
cou, Panama and Costa Rica. Most of these localities
have only one record each, showing that the mallard is
only a straggler to the southeast of the United States.
There seems to be no record for Central America from
Costa Rica to Mexico. The species is a common winter
resident of northern Mexico and ranges south to Jalapa,
the Valley of Mexico, Colima and southern Lower Cali-
fornia.

The northern winter limit in the interior is in Ohio,
northern Indiana, southern Wsconsin, Nebraska, Wyom-
ing and central Montana. The species is common in win-
ter along the whole Pacific coast as far north as the Aleu-
tian Islands.

Spring Migration—It is among the earliest of ducks to
move northward and forms a large proportion of the early
flocks. The portion of the central Mississippi Valley
that forms the extreme winter range is invaded by the
spring migrants the latter part of February; Frankfort,
Ind. (average for ten years), Feb. 21; central Illinois
(twelve years), Feb. 22; central Missouri (sixteen years),
Feb. 26; Keokuk, Ia. (nine years), Feb. 24; southern
Kansas (eleven years), Feb. 18; southern Nebraska (five
years), Feb. 19. Just north of the winter range average
dates of spring arrival are: Erie, Pa., March 5; central
New York, March 23; Oberlin, O., March 21; southern
Michigan, March 9; southern Ontario, March 24; Ot-
tawa, Ont., March 27; Chicago, Il. (eleven years), March

APPENDIX 165

19; southern Wisconsin (twelve years), March 21; Spirit
Lake, Iowa, March 10; Heron Lake, Minnesota, March
11; central South Dakota (fourteen years), March 16;
Larimore, N. D. (twelve years), March 28; Terry, Mont.,
March 26. The mallard crosses into central Canada early
in April, and the average date of arrival at Aweme, Man.
(ten years), is April 3 (earliest, March 24, 1905); Qu’
Appelle, Saskatchewan (six years), April 10 (earliest,
March 26, 1905.) The earliest migrants were seen at
Fort Resolution May 7, 1860; near Fort Providence,
April 27, 1904; Fort Simpson, May 3, 1904; Kowak River,
Alaska, May 17, 1899.

The last one seen in 1892 at Shellmound, Miss., was on
April 5; in northern Texas one was seen as late as May
6, 1889. In central Missouri, where a few remain to
breed, the average date when the last migrants are seen is
March 28.

Fall Migration.—In the fall this species returns with the
general mass of ducks, and the average date of its arrival
at Alexandria, Va., is Sept. 21 (earliest, Aug. 28, 1896) ; it
becomes common Oct. 27; at Chicago, IIl., Sept. 27; Grin-
nell, Ja:., Sept. 17, and in northern Texas Oct. 11. The
first one was noted at San Angelo, Tex., Aug. 10, 1883,
and at Austin, Tex., Sept. 1, 1893.

The mallard is one of the moderately hardy ducks and
remains in the north until the lakes begin to freeze. Ave-
rage dates when the last were seen are: Montreal, Can.,
Oct. 26 (latest, Nov. 13, 1897) ; Scotch Lake, New Bruns-
wick, Nov. 7; Ottawa, Ont. (nine years), Nov. 5 (latest,
Nov. 14, 1904) ; Aweme, Man. (eight years), Nov. 12 (lat-
est, Nov. 23, 1902) ; Chicago, Ill., Nov. 13; English Lake,
Indiana, Dec. 9; southern Minnesota (ten years), Nov.

166 APPENDIX

22 (latest, Dec. 11, 1890); central Iowa (twelve years),
Nov. 15 (latest, Nov. 27, 1903); central Nebraska, Nov.
18 (latest, Nov. 26, 1899.) :

Anas obscura Gmel. Black Duck.

Breeding Range—The group of “black,” or “dusky,”
ducks comprises several species which closely resemble
each other and which have been distinguished only in re-
cent years. The black duck is the common breeding duck
of New England and northern New York, south of which
it breeds not rarely on Long Island and locally in Penn-
sylvania (Bradford County), New Jersey (Long Beach),
Delaware and Maryland (Ocean City, Barrow Springs.)
To the westward the breeding range extends south to
Ohio (formerly), Indiana (Lake County), [llinois, lowa
(Spirit Lake) and Minnesota (Kandiyohi County.) It
breeds rarely and locally over much of Wisconsin, but
breeds more commonly in Michigan and southern On-
tario. It is a very common summer resident of Quebec,
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the islands of the Gulf
of St. Lawrence. The most northern points at which it
breeds are in southern Labrador and Newfoundland.
Somewhere in Labrador and in northern Ontario this
form meets the more northern form, the red-legged duck
(Anas obscura rubripes), but the dividing line between the
two is unknown. A specimen from the Straits of Belle
Isle is obscura; one from Okak, Labrador, is intermediate
and one from Ungava Bay, only a few miles farther north,
is rubripes.

The black duck breeds so early that young have been
found at Old Saybrook, Conn., May 5, and eggs at Reho--
both, Mass., April 30.

APPENDIX 167

Winter Range.—This species is accidental in winter in
the West Indies (Jamaica), rare in the Bermudas and rare
in central Florida (Gainesville) and also in Alabama.
From Georgia northward it is more common, and from
North Carolina to New Jersey it is one of the abundant
winter ducks. Black ducks, including both A. obscura
and A. rubripes, are abundant at this season around Long
Island and on the shores of Rhode Island and Massachu-
setts, but although a few A. obscura winter in Massa-
chusetts, the greater number are A. rubripes. West of the
Alleghenies there is uncertainty as to which form pre-
ponderates in winter. A. obscura is a tolerably common
winter resident of Louisiana, but A. rubripes reaches Ar-
kansas, and one form or the other winters as far north as
southern Ohio, southern Indiana and southern Illinois.
In migration A. obscura is rare west to eastern Nebraska
(Fairmont, Gresham, Calhoun) and eastern Kansas
(Reno County, Wichita and Lawrence.) Notes on the
migration of this species are for the most part included
under those of A. rubripes.

Anas obscura rubripes Brewst. Red-legged Black Duck.

Breeding Range——As stated under the last species, a
breeding duck from Okak, northeastern Labrador, is con-
sidered intermediate between this form and A. obscura,
while the bird breeding at Ungava Bay is A. rubripes.
This Ungava Bay record seems to mark the northeastern
limit of the species so far as reported. Thence the species
extends west to Hudson Bay, as far north at least as Fort
Churchill, and is rare or accidental west to Manitoba
(Long Lake; Lake Manitoba, Oct. 28, 1900; Delta, Sept.
4, 1902, September, 1903; St. Marks, two, October, 1902),

168 APPENDIX

and to Fort Anderson. The southern limit of the breed-
ing range in Ontario has not yet been determined.

Winter Range-——Most of the black ducks that winter in
Massachusetts are A. rubripes, and this is about as far
north as the species commonly winters. Along the coast
some have been known in winter as far north as Nova
Scotia. How far south the species goes has not yet been
determined, but it is common on the coast of South Caro-
lina from November to March, and a specimen was taken
in Mississippi County, Ark., Nov. 5, 1887. It occurs west
to Nebraska (Greenwood, Lincoln, Calhoun) and un-
doubtedly wanders to eastern Kansas. The northern
winter limit in the interior is probably from northwestern
Pennsylvania to southern Wisconsin.

Spring Migration.—It is impossible to separate the mi-
gration records of A. obscura and A. rubripes. The fol-
lowing migration notes probably refer for the most part
to A. rubripes, because that form winters farther north.
In March extensive northward movements of black ducks
occur, but it is not until early April that the birds pass
beyond the usual winter range. The average date of ar-
rival for seventeen years in southern Maine is April 7;
the earliest, March 19, 1894; the average date for Mont-
real is April 14, and March 27, 1889, is the earliest; Que-
bec, average, April 18 (earliest, April 6, 1896) ; Godbout,
Quebec, average, April 21; Prince Edward Island, April
23 (earliest, April 5, 1898.) Farther west the average
date of arrival in southern Ontario is April 7 (earliest,
March 16, 1901); average at Ottawa, April 14 (earliest,
March 21, 1903.)

Fall Migration.—A black duck was seen at Washington,
D. C., Aug. 1, 1887; one at Alexandria, Va., Aug. 14, 1886,

APPENDIX 169

and one at Hog Island, Va., Aug. 20, 1886; but these are
unusually early records. The average of a long series of
excellent records at Alexandria, Va., is Sept. 30 for the
arrival of the first and Oct. 31 as the average date when
they become common. About the middle of October, on
the New England coast, they become common enough to
usher in the shooting season. These dates, of course,
apply to A. obscura. There are no exact records of the
time when A. rubripes arrives from its northern breeding
grounds, but it is supposed that it reaches New England
about the first week in October. In winter it remains as
far north as it can find open water. The average date when
the last leave Ottawa, Ont., is Nov. 7 (latest, Nov. 21,
1892); average at Montreal, Nov. 6 (latest, Nov. 14,
1896.) The last one was seen at Prince Edward Island
Nov. 13, 1889, and Dec. 8, 1890.

Anas fulvigula Ridgw. Florida Duck.

A nonmigratory .species, breeding commonly in the
southern half of Florida, and less commonly in the north-
ern portion. It seems to be absent from northeastern
Florida, but occurs along the northwestern coast of the
State. Nests in late April and in May, but sometimes
much earlier, for downy young have been seen as early
as April 6.

Anas fulvigula maculosa (Senn.) Mottled Duck.

Resident in Texas and southern Louisiana (Lake Ar-
thur.) In Texas it occurs from the mouth of the Rio
Grande northward and west to about the middle of the
State. It is accidental in Kansas (Neosho Falls, March
11, 1876.) It breeds throughout most if not all of its
Texas range; the eggs are deposited in April.

170 APPENDIX

Chaulelasmus streperus (Linn.) Gadwall.

Breeding Range.—A large majority of the North Ameri-
can individuals of this species breed in the prairie district
extending from Manitoba to the Rocky Mountains, south
to western Minnesota and from northern South Dakota
north to the Saskatchewan.

The species breeds commonly from the Rocky Moun-
tains to the Pacific, south to southern Colorado, Utah,
Nevada and in nearly the whole of California; also prob-
ably in the Mogollon Mountains of Arizona, The north-
ern range extends to southern British Columbia, Alberta
(rarely or casually to Lesser Slave Lake) and to Fort
Churchill on Hudson Bay. There is no authentic record
for the Mackenzie Valley, and if the specimen in the Brit-
ish Museum labeled “Bering Straits” really was captured
there it was a wanderer, as was also one taken at Una-
laska, March 18, 1879.

In the Mississippi Valley the gadwall occasionally
breeds in northern Nebraska and rarely in Kansas. For-
merly it bred in Wisconsin (Horicon Marsh and Lake
Koshkonong), there is one record for Ontario (St. Clair
Flats) and one for Anticosti Island. It is only a strag-
gler to New England and the Maritime Provinces north
to Quebec and Newfoundland, and east of the Mississippi
is rare north of North Carolina.

The gadwall is a common breeder in Europe and Asia,
ranging south in winter far into Africaand to southern Asia.

Winter Range——The principal winter home of the gad-
wall is in the lower Mississippi Valley, especially Texas,
Louisiana and Arkansas. It rarely winters as far north as
Illinois, but is more common to the eastward in North
Carolina and Florida; accidental in Cuba (twice), Ja-

APPENDIX 171

maica and the Bermudas. The winter range extends to
the southern end of Lower California, to Mazatlan and
the City of Mexico. In northern Mexico the species is
common through the winter, and birds have been found
paired in May, the late date indicating that they intended
to remain and breed. Thence it extends commonly to
Utah and Oregon, rarely to Washington and British
Columbia.

Spring Migration—Only a few notes on the migration
of this species have been recorded. The average date
when the first spring migrants reach southern Iowa is
March 18 (earliest, March 10, 1896), it thus being one of
the earlier ducks in this part of its range. It reached
Heron Lake, Minn., April 1 (earliest, March 17, 1886) ;
Loveland, Colo., March 6, and Terry, Mont., about April
1. The first migrant was seen at Aweme, Man., April 23,
1898, and at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, April 18, 1892,
and April 24, 1904. Eggs have been secured at St. Clair
Flats, Ontario, about May 30; in western Minnesota, June
14, 1879; northern North Dakota, June 15, 1901; Mani-
toba, June 5, 1894; Crane Lake, Saskatchewan, June 9,
1894; Nevada, May 29, 1868, and incubated eggs in Los
Angeles County, California, April 16.

Fall Migration—tThe first arrived at the southern end
of Lower California Sept. 27, 1887; in northern New
Mexico the species was abundant the last days of Sep-
tember, 1904. The average date when the last left cen-
tral Minnesota was Nov. 14.

Mareca americana (Gmel.) Baldpate. American Widgeon.

Breeding Range.—A line drawn from the western shore
of Hudson Bay to the western shore of Lake Michigan

172 APPENDIX

marks, approximately, the eastern boundary of the breed-
ing range of this species, and in the eastern 200 miles of
this district it is decidedly uncommon during the nesting
season. There are a few records of the bird’s breeding in
Indiana (Hogback Lake, English Lake) and in Wiscon-
sin (formerly at Koshkonong and Horicon), but not until
Minnesota is reached does this duck breed commonly.
West of the Mississippi it breeds abundantly in North
Dakota, a few in southern South Dakota and rarely or
casually in Nebraska and Kansas. It is a common breeder
in Colorado, Utah and Nevada (Truckee Valley), and
probably breeds rarely in Arizona (Mormon Lake), but
as yet the species has not been recorded as nesting in
California. The main breeding range is northwestern
North America from Oregon and Minnesota north to the
Mackenzie Valley and central Alaska. A line from Fort
Churchill, Hudson Bay, to Franklin Bay is the approxi-
mate northeastern boundary of the range, thence west to
Kotzebue Sound. If this line from Franklin Bay to Fort
Churchill is continued to Chesapeake Bay, it marks the
approximate eastern limits at which the species is com-
mon in migration. Northeastward the species is known
as a rare migrant, in New England hardly more than a
straggler, but it has been recorded as far as Newfound-
land, southern Labrador (Natashquan) and northern
Ontario (Moose River.) The baldpate is rather rare on
the coast of Alaska, but is more common in the interior
and is a rare or casual visitor to the Near, Commander
and Bermuda Islands.

Winter Range-—The baldpate is common on the Chesa-
peake in winter, but as it is rare directly to the northward
at all times of the year, it is evident that the migration is

APPENDIX 173,

from the northwest. Occasionally birds are found in win-
ter as far north as Rhode Island. The species is common
during the winter in the Carolinas, less common in Flori-
da and Cuba and rare in the Bermudas, the Bahamas,
Jamaica, Porto Rico, St. Thomas and Trinidad. It is re-
corded from Costa Rica and is a rather common winter
resident of northern Guatemala and much of Mexico
north of the Valley of Mexico. The winter home in the
Mississippi Valley extends north to Illinois and in the
west to New Mexico, Arizona, Utah (probably) and to
southern British Columbia. It is probably most common —
during the winter along the Pacific coast.

Spring Migration—This begins late in February, and
by early March the species is north of its winter home.
Average dates of arrival are: Western New York, March
23; Erie, Pa., March 24; Oberlin, O., March 17; southern
Michigan, March 25; Keokuk, Ia., March 15; central Ne-
braska, March 17; Loveland, Colo., March 10. The fur-
ther advance of the species is somewhat slow. The ave-
rage time of reaching Heron Lake, Minn., is March 29;
southern Manitoba, April 20; Terry, Mont., April 8. The
first individual was seen at Indian Head, Saskatchewan,
April 24, 1904, and at Osler, Saskatchewan, May 2, 1893.
These dates indicate an average speed of seventeen miles
per day from central Nebraska to Heron Lake and
eighteen miles per day thence to southern Manitoba.
The average rate from Colorado to Montana is sixteen
miles per day, and the same rate continued northward
would bring the first baldpate to Indian Head and Osler
at almost exactly the stated dates. If the birds of the
Mississippi Valley pass northwest to the Mackenzie Val-
ley, this rate of migration would bring them to Great

174 APPENDS

Slave Lake about the first week in June, whereas the first
arrival at Fort Simpson, Mackenzie, was April 28, 1904;
and a female was shot at Fort Resolution May 24, 1860,
which contained a fully formed egg. It is evident, then,
that the earliest arrivals in the Mackenzie Valley come
from the southwest, where, in southern British Columbia,
the species winters a thousand miles farther north than
on the plains. The baldpate arrives at the mouth of the
Yukon in early May, and on the Knik River, Alaska, the
first bird was noted May 10, 1901. Most of the few spring
records in New England are in April, two in February,
but the species is apparently less common in the spring
than in the fall. -The last migrants usually leave Cuba
late in April, though in Guatemala they have been seen
as late as May.

Fall Migration—The month of September, especially
the latter half, sees the arrival of the first baldpates over
most of the district between the breeding grounds and
Cuba and Louisiana; but these are only the advance
scouts; the main body appears in the northern United
States early in October and reaches the middle Atlantic
States about the middle of that month. Dates of arrival
are: Middletown, R. I., Sept. 20, 1889; East Hartford;
Conn., Sept. 29, 1888; Beaver, Pa., Aug. 30, 1890. Strae=
glers have been seen in Massachusetts and in northern
Pennsylvania as late as the first week in December, but
most leave at least a month earlier. The average date at
which the last were seen at Ottawa, Ont., is Oct. 27, latest
Nov. 6, 1890; at Keokuk, Ia., Nov. 13, latest Nov. 18, 1892.
The last was seen at Montreal Sept. 20, 1897; Edmonton,
Alberta, Nov. 6, 1896; Kowak River, Alaska, Sept. 20,
1898; St. Michael, Alaska, Oct. 1.

APPENDIX 175

Nettion carolinense (Gmel.) Green-winged Teal.

Breeding Range—A few probably have bred in the
mountains of north central Pennsylvania (Lycoming
County), and it has been reported as nesting near Buf-
falo, N. Y. The regular breeding range extends from
New Brunswick, through northeastern Quebec and New-
foundland, to Ungava Bay, Labrador, latitude 58°. It is
a common migrant in Ontario, and hence undoubtedly
breeds in the northern part. It has been recorded as a
rare breeder in southern Ontario (Toronto, Point aux
Pins, Oshawa, Gravenhurst.) The southern boundary of
the breeding range to the westward is found in Illinois
(Rockford, Lacon, Fernwood), in Michigan (Neebish
Island), Wisconsin (Lake Koshkonong, formerly), Min-
nesota (Faribault, Heron Lake), Nebraska (Dewey
Lake, Badger, Valentine), Colorado (Beloit, San Luis -
Valley), New Mexico (San Miguel County), Utah (Salt
Lake), Nevada (Washoe Lake), Oregon (Fort Klamath.)
The range extends north to the edge of the Barren
Grounds from near Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay, to Fort
Anderson, to Kotzebue Sound and nearly to Point Bar-
row. It breeds throughout the Aleutian Chain to the
Near Islands. It is rare as a breeder everywhere in the
United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and the main
breeding grounds are in west central Canada from Mani-
toba to Lake Athabaska. It has wandered a few times to
the west coast of Greenland, from Nanortalik to Disco
Bay, and was once taken in May on the east coast at
Nanusek. The species is accidental in Great Britain, the
Bermudas and Hawaii.

Winter Range——South of the United States it is com-
mon in Mexico, at least as far as Jalapa, the City of Mex-

176 APPENDIX

ico, Michoacan and Jalisco; common also in the Bahamas
and rare in Cuba, Jamaica and Honduras. It has been
recorded on the islands of Carriacou, Grenada and Toba-
go, of the Lesser Antilles.

It is one of the most abundant ducks throughout the
southwestern United States during winter. It is a hardy
duck and in general remains as far north as it can find open
fresh water. Thus it winters in western. Montana (Great
Falls), central Utah, southern Nebraska, southern Iowa,
central Illinois, central Indiana (rarely Lake Michigan),
western New York and Rhode Island. It is accidental in
Massachusetts in winter, and one was found at Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Jan. 14, 1890. The principal winter home in
the Mississippi Valley lies south of 37° latitude.

Spring Migration—The green-winged teal is one of the
early migrating “river ducks,” but not quite so early, by
about five days, as the mallard. Along the Atlantic slope
it passes north of its winter home in early March, and the
average date of its arrival in southern Pennsylvania is
March 16; southern Connecticut, April 6; Montreal, Can-
ada, April 27; Prince Edward Island, April 26.

The average date of the first arrivals in central Mis-
souri is Feb. 26; central Illinois, March 7; English Lake,
Ind., March 15; Keokuk, Ia. (average for twelve years),
March 3; central Iowa (fourteen years), March 11; Her-
on Lake, Minn. (six years), March 24 (earliest, March 6,
1887.) In its migration along the eastern border of the
plains the green-winged teal is noted at Onaga, Kans.,
March 8; northern Nebraska, March 12; central South
Dakota, March 20; northern North Dakota, April 6;
Aweme, Man., April 16, and southern Saskatchewan,
April 19. These dates indicate the rather slow rate of

APPENDIX 177

only eighteen miles a day. The average of five years’
records of arrival at Terry, Mont., is March 23, a date
about ten days earlier than that at which the species
appears in the same latitude in Minnesota. Its winter
home on the Pacific coast extends 1,500 miles farther
north than on the Atlantic, and hence it is not surprising
that the bird has been seen on the middle Yukon by May
3 and at the mouth of the Yukon by May 10.

South of the breeding range the last green-winged teal
was seem at Raleich, N. C., April 13, 1900; Hester, La.,
April 6, 1902; northern Texas, April 16, 1886. The aver-
age date of disappearance for eight years at Keokuk, Ia.,
is April 7, latest, April 30, 1892.

Eggs were taken at Nulato, Alaska, latitude 65°, May
20, and no earlier date seems to be recorded for the
regions to the south. Eggs have been found at Ed-
monton, Alberta, latitude 54°, May 27, and in southern
Ontario, latitude 45°, May 22. Downy young were seen
in the Devils Lake region of North Dakota June 20.

Fall Migration.—An average date for the reappearance
of the green-winged teal at Erie, Pa., is Sept. 15 (earliest,
Sept. 1, 1894); at Alexandria, Va., Sept. 29 (earliest,
Sept. 22); but it is not considered common until early
November. Corresponding dates of arrival are: Keokuk,
Taz, Sept) (Zi; central Kansas, Sept. 12;. central Texas,
sept., 22> central California; Sept. 17.: The last was
noted on Prince Edward Island, Nov. 4, 1890; Montreal,
Can., Nov. 1, 1893; Aweme, Man., Oct. 30, 1896; Kowak
River, Alaska, Sept. 3, 1898; St. Michael, Alaska, the
first week in October. The average date of the last seen
in southern Ontario (thirteen years) is Oct. 28 (latest,

178 APPENDIX

Nov. 7, 1890); at Keokuk, Ia. (seven years), Nov. 22
(latest, ‘Nov. 27, 1902.)

Querquedula discors (Linn.) Blue-winged Teal.

Breeding Range.——The principal summer home of this
teal is the interior of North America between the Rocky
Mountains and the Great Lakes, from northern Illinois
and central Iowa north to Saskatchewan. The species
is not common east of the Allegheny Mountains nor on
the Pacific slope. It has been recorded as breeding
rarely in Rhode Island (Sakonnet, 1890), Maine (Calais),
New Brunswick (Kings County, St. John County), Nova
Scotia, Anticosti Island and Newfoundland, Quebec
(Montreal, Point de Monts), Ungava (Clearwater Lake,
latitude 57°), rare in southern Ontario (Toronto), New
York (Utica, Auburn, Buffalo, formerly Long Island,
Black Pond, Ulster County.) It breeds as far south as
northern Ohio (Port Clinton, Sandusky), southern In-
diana (Gibson County and Wheatland), southern Illinois
(Anna), central Missouri (Kings Lake, Warrensburg,
Kansas City), central Kansas (Emporia, Wichita, Medi-
cine Lodge, Fort Hays)—casual or accidental breeding at
Fort Reno, Okla., and San Antonio and Spring Lake,
Texas—southern Colorado (Fort Garland and La Plata
County), New Mexico (Santa Rosa; Black Lake, Colfax
County ; Chloride), probably in Arizona (Mogollon Moun-
tains), central Utah (Thistle Valley, Fairfield, northern
Nevada (Truckee Valley, Washoe Lake, and central Ore-
gon (Burns.)

The breeding range extends north to central British
Columbia (Lac la Hache, 158-Mile House); but the
bird is rare or accidental in Alaska (Cape Romanzoff),

APPENDIX 179

Alberta (Edmonton), and on Great Slave Lake. Much
remains to be learned in regard to the nesting of the blue-
winged teal in the West Indies and Central America. It
breeds in Jamaica and in the Lesser Antilles, quite prob-
ably also in Honduras and in western Mexico (Mazat-
lan), near the southern end of Lower California.

The resident teal of Jamaica probably should be sepa-
rated subspecifically as Querquedula discors inornata
(Gosse), but the eastern and western boundaries of this
form remain to be determined.

Winter Range—Blue-winged teal migrate over a vast
extent of territory, and are found in winter throughout
northern South America south to Brazil, Ecuador, Peru
and Chile. They occur abundantly in Central America,
Mexico and the West Indies, and are equally common
during the winter in the Gulf States and north to North
Carolina. In the Mississippi Valley few remain much
north of the Gulf, though these few are scattered widely
as far as southern Indiana and southern Illinois; a few
winter in Arizona, and the small number of Pacific coast
birds spend the winter in California and north to south-
ern British Columbia.

North of North Carolina this teal can hardly be called
a common winter species, though it is not rare on Chesa-
peake Bay and winters even as far north as Delaware.
This species is one of the least hardy of our ducks, and
few individuals remain where there is cold and ice.

Spring Migration—The blue-winged teal is among the
latest ducks to migrate. The first was noted at Erie, Pa.,
March 27, 1898; Templeton, Mass., April 1, 1898; Prince
Edward Island, April 20, 1888. In central Iowa, where
the hardy ducks appear in February, the blue-winged teal

180 APPENDIX

was noted on the average (ten years) March 26 (earliest,
March 18, 1899) ; northern Iowa, April 4, and Heron Lake,
Minn., April 9. The records of Heron Lake are quite uni-
form—April 11, 1885; April 11, 1886; April 10, 1887, April
8, 1888; April 9, 1889, April 7, 1890. These dates indicate
less variation in the time of arrival of this species than ©
of any other. The blue-winged teal appears in south-
eastern Nebraska, March 28; central South Dakota,
April 2; central North Dakota, April 12; northwestern
Minnesota, April 23; Aweme, Man., April 27.

In southern Texas this teal becomes common in spring
about the middle of March; about the first week in April
is the height of the shooting season in southern Louisi-
ana. The latest migrants have been noted at Gaines-
ville, Fla., April 29, 1887; Baltimore, Md., May 7, 1890;
New Orleans, La., May 21, 1898; San Antonio, Tex., May
14, 1902. Eggs have been taken at Canton, IIl., May 16,
1897. Eggs just hatching were found on the Magdalen
Islands, Gulf of St. Lawrence, June 16, 1900, and fresh
eggs at Waseca, Minn., June 1; in North Dakota, June
12; and at Reaburn, Man., June 4, 1894.

Fall Migration—The blue-winged teal is one of the
earliest ducks to move southward; during the month of
August it reappears throughout the northern half of the
United States and some especially early birds almost
reach the Gulf of Mexico. During a period of fourteen
years the average date of arrival at Alexandria, Va., was
Aug. 31 (earliest, Aug. 18, 1889) ; they become common
on the average Sept. 23, though in the fall of 1887 they
were already numerous Sept. 10. The average date of
arrival in central Kansas is Sept. 12, and in southern
Mississippi Sept. 16.

APPENDIX 181

The average date at which the last was seen at Mont-
real was Sept. 25; latest, Sept. 29, 1888; the last one
seen on Prince Edward Island in this same year was
Wect..0;; Lewiston, Me, Nov: 7, 1901; Cape May, Nz J.;
Dec. 5, 1884.

The average date for eight years when the last one
was seen at Ottawa, Ont., is Oct. 13 (latest, Oct. 27,
1894); Chicaco, Fl, Oct. 18 (latest, Oct. .22, 1904);
southern Iowa, Oct. 22 (latest, Nov. 4, 1885; central
South Dakota, Oct. 7; eastern Nebraska, Nov. 11; cen-
tral Missouri, Nov. 6 (latest, Nov. 13, 1902). The last
one seen in 1896 at Aweme, Man., was on Oct. 30. Dur-
ing the fall migration the blue-winged teal is fairly com-
mon on the Bermudas, but it rarely occurs there in

spring.
Querquedula cyanoptera (Vieill.) Cinnamon Teal.

Breeding Range.—The breeding range of the cinnamon
teal differs essentially from that of almost every other
duck in the Western Hemisphere. It consists of a large
area north of the equator and a similar district south of
the equator, and these two homes are separated by a
strip about 2,000 miles wide, in which the species is prac-
tically unknown. In North America the breeding range
extends north to southern British Columbia (Lac la
Hache) and southwestern Alberta; east to eastern Wy-
oming (Lake Como, Cheyenne), western Kansas (Fort
Wallace, Meade County) ; south to northern Lower Cali-
fornia (La Grulla, San Rafael Valley, and possibly San
Jose del Cabo), northern Mexico (Chihuahua City),
southern New Mexico (Carlsbad), and southwestern
Texas (Marathon, Rock Spring.)

182 APPENDIX

The cinnamon teal occurs sparingly in migration as
far east as Houston, Tex., and Omaha, Neb. It has been
noted as accidental at Oak Lake, Manitoba; Big Stone
Lake, Minnesota; Lake Koshkonong, Wisconsin; Lick-
ing County Reservoir, Ohio; Seneca River and Seneca
Lake, New York; Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Catta-
watchie, St. Malo, and Opelousas, La.; Mount Pleasant,
S. C.; Lake Iamonia and Key West, Fla.

Throughout this breeding area the eggs are deposited
during May and June. About six months later the South
American colony breeds. The breeding range includes
the pampas of Argentina as far north as Buenos Aires,
while in the Andes it extends north to central Peru
(Santa Luzia.) Southward the species breeds as far as
the Falkland Islands and the Straits of Magellan. These
South American breeders, of course, are not the same
birds which nest in North America, for it is true, without
exception, that no bird which breeds north of the equator
breeds also in the Southern Hemisphere.

Winter Range-—The cinnamon teal of North America
retires in winter but little south of its breeding range in
Mexico as far as Mazatlan, Guanajuato, and the Laguna
de Chapulco, Puebla. It is found at this season as far
north as Brownsville, Tex., central New Mexico, south-
ern Arizona, and Tulare Lake, California. South of
Mexico the only record is of an accidental occurrence in -
Costa Rica. There is no reliable record as yet for the
West Indies.

During the winter season the cinnamon teal of the
Southern Hemisphere has been noted as far south as the
mouth of the Senger River, in Patagonia, latitude 44° S.,
and Chiloe Island, Chile, in nearly the same latitude. The

APPENDIX 183

northern range in winter is not determinable with exact-
ness from present data. The species passes north to
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and to southern Paraguay.
It has been noted at Chorillos and Tungasuca, Peru;
near Quito, Ecuador; at Bogota and Santa Marta, Co-
lombia. These Ecuador and Colombia teal may be acci-
dental occurrences; it is significant, at least, that all the ,
specimens from Colombia were taken a half a century
ago, and the species has not been noted there by recent
collectors.

Spring Migration—The northward movement of the
cinnamon teal in the United States begins about the Ist of
March, and arrivals have been noted at Ash Meadows,
Nev., March 18, 1891; Grangeville, Ida., April 11, 1887;
Chilliwack, British Columbia, April 24, 1888, and April
22, 1889; Beloit, Colo., March 23, 1892; Colorado Springs,
April 9, 1882; Loveland, Colo., April 13, 1890; Lay, Colo.,
April 20, 1890; Omaha, Neb., April 10, 1896, and April
12, 1897; Lake Como, Wyoming, about May 5.

Fall Migration—Southward migration occurs chiefly
in September, and the northern portion of the breeding
grounds from British Columbia to eastern Colorado is
deserted about the middle of October.

- Spatula clypeata (Linn.) Shoveller.

Breeding Range.—The principal North American sum-
mer home of the shoveller is in the prairie region of the
interior, from a little south of the Canadian border, north
to the Saskatchewan. Throughout this region it is com-
mon. To the eastward it is rare. It is scarcely common
as far as Hudson Bay; nor is it common east of a line
from southeastern Michigan to the mouth of Chesapeake

184 APPENDIX

Bay, in which latter region it is found only in migration
and in winter. In the Maritime Provinces of Canada,
and even north to Newfoundland, the shoveller has been
recorded as a rare or casual visitor; but reliable breed-
ing records from this region seem to be lacking. It is
rare as a breeder in southern Michigan, and to the east-
ward is almost accidental in summer, though it has been
known to breed at English Lake, northwestern Indiana,
and at Long Point, on the north shore of Lake Erie.
The regular breeding range extends south to northern
Iowa and southern South Dakota; thence southward it
breeds rarely and locally in Nebraska and Kansas, and
during the summer of 1905 one of the parties of the Bio-
fogical Survey found it breeding near East Bernard,
about latitude 29° 30’, in southeastern Texas. In the
western United States the species breeds commonly
from Colorado to northern California, and rarely in New
Mexico (Santa Rosa), Arizona (Mogollon Mountains),
and southern California (Los Angeles County.) On the
southern coast of Texas the species is not uncommon all
summer, though these summer residents are probably
nonbreeders. Mated birds have been found in May in
northern Chihuahua, Mexico, and at the southern end
of Lower California, and it is not improbable that the
species may breed locally in these districts, and even
south to Lake Chapala, Jalisco.

The northern limit of the usual breeding range is from
the valley of the Saskatchewan to central British Colum-
bia. The species is a rare breeder thence northward to
the edge of the Barren Grounds, casually to Fort Ander-
son and Fort McPherson. It is rather rare in the Yukon
region, but has been known to breed at Fort Yukon,

APPENDIX 185

Nulato, and along the west coast of Alaska from the
mouth of the Kuskokwim River to Kotzebue Sound.
The shoveller has a wide range in the Eastern Hemi-
sphere, breeding north about to the Arctic Circle, and
retiring in winter to northern Africa and southern Asia.

Winter Range-—A few pass south in winter to Colom-
bia, South America (Medellin, Bogota), Panama, Costa
Rica, and through the West Indies (Cuba, Jamaica, Porto
ihico; St, Thomas, Barbados and Trinidad.) It is rare
in Florida, and seems not to have been noted in the
Bahamas. The Carolinas are the only place on the At-
lantic coast where the species is common. It is not rare
in Maryland, and there are a few winter records for New
Jersey. The greater portion of the species winters in
the southern Mississippi Valley, north rarely to southern
Illinois—accidental Jan. 11, 1892, at Lanesboro, Minn.—
and south through Mexico to central Guatemala; indeed
many hundreds of thousands are said to winter near
. Lake Chapala, Jalisco. At this season it is found in New
Mexico, Arizona, all of California, and less commonly
north on the Pacific coast to southern British Columbia.
Numbers winter in the Hawaiian Islands. During flight
between the winter and summer home it passes through
the northeastern United States, not rarely through Penn-
sylvania and New York, and formerly it was not rare in
Massachusetts; but for the last fifteen years there has
been hardly more than a single record a year for the
whole of New England.

Spring Migration.—Records of the movements of this
species are not numerous enough to permit exact state-
ments. Migration begins late in February, but is slight
before the middle of March, at which time the species

186 APPENDIX

begins to appear north of its winter range. Average
dates of arrival are: Central Illinois, March 23; central
Iowa, March 23 (average of sixteen years) ; Heron Lake,
Minn., March 26; central Nebraska, March 25; central
-Colorado, March 12; vicinity of Chicago, Ill., April 16;
southeastern Minnesota, April 9; central North Dakota,
April 13; southern Manitoba (twelve years), April 21;
Terry, Mont., April 13. The first were seen near Ed-
monton, Alberta, May 1, 1901; Fort Chipewyan, Macken-
zie, May 7, 1893; Fort Resolution, Mackenzie, May 18,
1860, and at the mouth of the Yukon River the second
week in May. The general time of breeding can be
learned from the following dates: Haywards, Cal., eggs
April 25, 1901; East Bernard, Tex., downy young May
14, 1905; Fort Snelling, Minn., eggs May 23; North Da-
kota, incubated eggs June 7; Oak Lake, Manitoba, eggs
May 24, 1892.

Fall Migration.—An individual seen at Erie, Pa., Sept.
6, 1893, marks about the beginning of fall migration, and
soon after this, by the middle of the month, the earliest
migrants have reached the mouth of the Mississippi
River. The larger portion has departed from the north-
ern United States by the middle of October, and the re-
gion just north of the winter range is deserted early in
November. South of the United States, at the southern
end of Lower California, the first arrivals have been re-
corded Oct. 18; Guaymas, Mexico, November; Panama,
Oct. 16; Cuba, September; Jamaica, November ; Trinidad,
December.

Defila acuta (Linn.) Pin-tail.

Breeding Range.—This is a common breeding duck

throughout a wide stretch of country from North Dakota

APPENDIX 187

to the Arctic Ocean and Alaska. The western shores of
Hudson Bay seem to be the eastern limit of the normal
breeding ground in North America. A few birds have
been seen in Labrador, north to Ungava Bay, on the
west coast of Greenland, north to Upernavik, and also
in Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces. But there
are only a few breeding records east of the line from the
western side of Hudson Bay to the western shore of Lake
Michigan; examples are: St. George Island, James Bay;
St. Clair Flats, Ontario, and the north shore of Lake
Erie. Breeding abundantly along the northern border
of the United States from Lake Superior nearly to the
Pacific Ocean, the species decreases in numbers south-
ward until it is rare or casual as a breeder in southern
Wisconsin, northern Illinois (Will, Calumet Marsh,
Grass Lake); southern Minnesota (Faribault, Waverly,
Heron Lake) ; northern Iowa (Hancock County) ; south-
ern South Dakota (Vermilion, Scotland, Running Wa-
ter), and northern Nebraska (Kennedy, Hay Lake) ; ac-
cidental near Kansas City, Mo.; abundant in Montana
and rare in Wyoming (Lake Desmet), Colorado (Lari-
mer County), and probably Arizona (Mormon Lake) ;
common in British Columbia, and rare and local through
Washington (Mabton) and Oregon (Rock Creek Sink)
to southern California (Alamitos.) The northern limit
of the breeding range extends from the Arctic coast
northwest of Hudson Bay west to Alaska and the Si-
berian coast.

The pin-tail breeds in the northern portions of the Old
World and migrates south in winter to northern Africa
and southern Asia. A few have been taken in the Ber-
mudas in the fall and winter.

188 APPENDIX

Winter Range——The pin-tail is common in winter on
the coast of North Carolina, and is not uncommon coast-
wise as far south as Florida; many spend the winter in
Cuba, a few pass to Jamaica, and there is one record of
the species in Porto Rico; it is one of the common winter
ducks from Mexico to Costa Rica, rare in Panama; a
few winter as far north as Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
while accidentals in winter have been recorded from
Long Island and Lynn, Mass. Only a few winter in the
Mississippi Valley north of southern Illinois, and thence
the winter home extends through Texas, New Mexico,
and Arizona to the Pacific coast, where it is abundant
at this season as far north as southern British Columbia.
The species winters casually in southern Ohio and south-
ern Indiana, while of late years it has become a regular
local winter resident in southern Wisconsin.

Spring Migration—The pin-tail vies with the mallard
in the earliness of its spring movements; these two, with
the Canada goose, are among the first of the water fowl
to wing their way northward. Even in February, while
winter still holds sway, restless adventurers appear in
much of the region, which, except in a few favored
spots, forbids residence through the winter. The average
date of arrival of these birds in central Indiana (fourteen
years) is Feb. 21; southern Illinois (twelve years), Feb.
26; central Missouri (fourteen years), Feb. 26; Keokuk,
Ia. (fourteen years), Feb. 18; central Kansas (seven
years), Feb. 21; southern Nebraska (five years), Feb. 23.
Farther north average dates of arrival are: Erie, Pa.,
March 11 (earliest, Feb. 23, 1891); northwestern New
York, March 25 (earliest, Feb. 25, 1902); southern On-
tario, April 18; Ottawa, Ont., April 30; Montreal, April

APPENDIX 189

23; Prince Edward Island, April 24. The late arrival of
this species in eastern Canada is noteworthy, for by the
time it reaches there, late April, in the interior it has
penetrated a thousand miles farther north. Along this
latter route average dates of appearance are southern
Michigan, March 18; vicinity of Chicago (thirteen years),
March 20 (earliest, March 12, 1893.) The normal time
of arrival in central Iowa, as deduced from copious rec-
ords for twenty years, seems to be March 6, but in
twelve of these years one station or another reported
unusually early birds, the average date of arrival of
which is Feb. 21. The average date when southern
Minnesota is reached is (fourteen years) March 9 and
northwestern Minnesota (four years) April 8. On the
plains the average dates are: Northern Nebraska, March
5; southern South Dakota, March 8; central South Da-
kota, March 17; WLarimore, N. D., April 3. (earliest,
March 20, 1889); Reaburn, Man., April 8 (earliest,
April 5, 1900); Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, April 10
(earliest, March 25, 1905) ; Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie,
about May 1; Fort Confidence, May 22, 1849. A very
early bird was seen at Fort Simpson, Mackenzie, April
28, 1904. Nearer the Rocky Mountains, the average
date at Terry, Mont., was April 1 (earliest, March 10,
1902) ; Great Falls, Mont., March 16 (earliest, March 10,
1889) ; Edmonton, Alberta, April 7, 1887; St. Michael
and Nulato, Alaska, about May 1; Kowak River,
Alaska, May 14, 1899; Point Barrow, Alaska, June 18,
1882.

The pin-tail not only migrates early, but it is also
among the earlier ducks to breed, as evidenced by the
following data: Will, Ill., eggs, May 10, 1877; Calumet

190 APPENDIX

Marsh, Illinois, fresh eggs, May 29, 1875; Hancock
County, lowa, eggs, May 1, 1879; Hay Lake, Nebraska,
half-grown young, June 17, 1902; North Dakota, eggs,
early May, young, first week of June; Oak Lake, Mani-
toba, incubated eggs, May 24, 1892; near Lake Atha-
baska, eggs nearly hatched, June 8, 1901; Nulato, Alaska,
beginning to breed May 20; Circle City, Alaska, downy
young, July 10, 1903; Kowak River, Alaska, first eggs,
June 1, 1899.

Fall Migration.—As is true of most ducks, there is a
southward movement in August, but it is not until early
September that many appear south of the breeding
grounds, and in the course of two weeks a few birds
find their way even to the Gulf of Mexico, arriving there
by the middle of September. Some early dates are:
Erie, Pa., Sept. 6, 1893; Alexandria, Va., Sept. 13, 1690;
Long Island, Sept. 15, 1903; Rhode Island, Sept. 4; east-
ern Massachusetts, Sept. 11; Montreal, Sept. 3. The
main flight is a whole month later, bringing the birds in
large numbers to Chesapeake Bay the middle of October
and to the coast of North Carolina late in that month.
Some very early migrants have been seen in west central
Texas Sept. 4; at Corpus Christi, Tex., Aug. 18, 1902,
and at the southern end of Lower California, Aug. 29:
_ The last ones leave the Arctic just about the time the
first reach the Gulf of Mexico; the last were noted at
Point Barrow, Alaska, Sept. 7, 1882; Kowak River,
Alaska, Sept. 14, 1898; St. Michael, Alaska, Oct. 10;
Fort Franklin, Mackenzie, Sept. 27, 1903. Large flocks
begin to leave southern Minnesota the middle of
October, and most have departed by the Ist of No-
vember.

APPENDIX 191

Aix sponsa (Linn.) Wood-duck.

Breeding Range.—The wood-duck is more closely con-
fined to the United States than any other North Ameri-
can duck. South of this country it is not a rare resident
in Cuba and is accidental in Jamaica and the Bermudas.
It occurs in California south to Los Angeles and Ventura
counties, in the latter of which it breeds. There is a
single record for Mexico, at Mazatlan. It breeds in
eastern Texas, south rarely to San Antonio; thence to
the Pacific slope and north throughout the whole Rocky
Mountain region it is rare or accidental. It is recorded
as breeding in southwestern Colorado (Fort Lewis),
northern Idaho (Fort Sherman), northern Montana
(Flathead Lake), and as a rare migrant in various locali-
ties south to New Mexico and Arizona.

The northern extension of its range is found in Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, for the species is not yet
recorded from Newfoundland, and there seems to be no
reliable record for Labrador. It ranges at least as far
north as Montreal, Ottawa, Moose Factory, Trout Lake
and Cumberland House. It appears to be absent from
the Rocky Mountain region of Canada, but occurs in
southern British Columbia (Agassiz, Sumas, Chilliwack
and Burnaby Lake.)

It is one of the earliest ducks to breed, as young were
found in northern Florida on March 19, 1877.

Winter Range—The southern range in winter has al-
ready been given; northward the species winters regu-
larly to North Carolina, occasionally in Maryland and
Pennsylvania; accidentally in New York and Massachu-
setts. In the interior it is found at this season as far
north as southern Indiana, southern Illinois and Kansas.

192 APPENDIX

On the Pacific coast a few winter near the northern limit
of the summer range.

Spring Migration—This duck is one of those which
migrate north moderately early, and in central New York
the average date of its arrival is March 25 (earliest,
March 16, 1898); eastern Massachusetts, March 24;
Montreal, Can., April 24; central Iowa, March 20 (ear-
liest, March 7, 1898); northern Ohio, April 1 (earliest,
March 10, 1887) ; Petersburg, Mich., March 15; southern
Ontario, April 17 (earliest, April 1, 1890) ; Ottawa, Ont.
(average fifteen years), April 22 (earliest, March 26,
1898) ; Heron Lake, Minn., April 4 (earliest, March 24,
1890) ; Elk River, Minn., April 6 (earliest, April 4, 1885) ;
southern Manitoba, April 15 (earliest, April 2, 1895.)

Fall Migration—The southward migration amounts to
no more than withdrawal from the northern half of the
summer range. This occurs largely during October, and
the average date when the last migrants are seen at Ot-
tawa, Ont. (fourteen years), is Oct. 27 (latest, Nov. 7,
1896) ; Montreal, Nov. 1; southern Maine, Oct. 27 (latest,
Nov. 2, 1896; southern Iowa, Nov. 9 (latest, Nov. 21.)

Aythya americana (Fyt.) Redhead.

Breeding Range—The greater number of redheads
summer in a rather restricted area in western central —
Canada, comprising western Manitoba, Alberta and Sas-
katchewan. The species breeds not rarely in the northern
portions of Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana. It
is less common in southern Minnesota (Madison, Heron
Lake), southern South Dakota (Harrison, Vermilion),
Idaho (Lake Hoodoo), and on the Pacific slope locally
from Lac la Hache, British Columbia, south to southern

APPENDIX 193

California (Ventura and Los Angeles counties), and east
to Ruby Lake, Nevada, and Rush Lake, Utah. The red-
head used to breed not uncommonly in the great marshes
of the lake region of southeastern Wisconsin, but now it
is restricted to a few localities, one of which is Lake
Koshkonong. It has bred on the St. Clair Flats of Mich-
igan and Ontario.

Only a few pass as far north as 54° latitude, the north-
ern range of the species thus being more restricted than
that of any other Canadian duck. A stray was taken in
1896 on Kadiak Island, Alaska, the only record on the
Pacific coast north of Vancouver Island, and an indi-
vidual was taken in the fall in southeastern Labrador.
It is not yet recorded in Newfoundland, and is a rare
migrant in the Maritime Provinces.

Aythya vallisneria (Wils.) Canvasback.

Breeding Range.—The district just east of the Rocky
Mountains in Alberta seems to be a center of abundance
of this species in the breeding season. East of this dis-
trict it breeds commonly to about the one hundredth
meridian; south to the southern boundary of Canada,
west to central British Columbia and Sitka, north to
Great Slave Lake, and northwest to Gens de large Moun-
tains and Fort Yukon. It does not commonly breed in
the United States, but a few nest in northern North Da-
kota and in diminishing numbers southward to Ne-
braska (Cody, Irwin, Hackberry Lake); it is rare as a
breeder in Minnesota (Madison, Heron Lake), and a few
crippled birds have been known to breed on Lake Kosh-
konong, Wisconsin. In 1900 it bred casually at Barr
Lake, near Denver, Colo., and it has been known to

194 APPENDIX

breed at Pyramid Lake, Nevada, and in a few places in
Oregon.

Aythya marila (Linn.) Scaup Duck; Broadbill; Black-
head; Bluebill.

Breeding Range.—The principal summer home of the
scaup in the Western Hemisphere is northwestern North
America, from northern North Dakota, southeastern
British Columbia and Sitka, Alaska, north to Fort
Churchill, Great Slave Lake, Fort Reliance, Alaska, and
Kotzebue Sound; also throughout the whole Aleutian
chain to the Near Islands. It breeds accidentally or
casually at Mount Vernon, Va., 1881; Magdalen Islands,
Gulf of St. Lawrence; Toronto, Ont.; St. Clair Flats,
Michigan; Clear Lake, Iowa; Minneapolis and Fergus
Falls, Minn., and Great Whale River, James Bay.

The species also breeds in the Arctic regions of the
Old World, and winters south to southern Europe and
central Asia.

Aythya affinis (Eyt.) Lesser Scaup Duck.

Breeding Range.—lIn the case of this species a distinc-
tion needs to be drawn between the breeding range and
the summer range. Quite a number of nonbreeding indi-
viduals spend the summer many miles south of the nest-
ing grounds, so that the eggs or young are the only cer-
tain evidence that the species breeds. These nonbreed-
ing birds are not rare on the New England coast, Long
Island Sound and the Great Lakes. The lesser scaup
does not breed regularly in northeastern United States
nor in any of the Maritime Provinces; indeed, there is
scarcely a breeding record for the whole of North Amer-

APPENDIX 195

ica east of Hudson Bay and Lake Huron. The extreme
easterly points at which the species breeds are around
Lake St. Clair and the western end of Lake Erie in Ohio,
Michigan and Ontario; thence westward, a few breed
in northern Indiana (Kewanna, English Lake), southern
Wisconsin (Delavan, Lake Koshkonong), northern lowa
(Spirit Lake, Clear Lake), northern Nebraska (probably
in Cherry County), Montana (common) and central Brit-
ish Columbia (Cariboo District.) The species is rather
rare on the Pacific coast and seems to have been found
only once on the coast of Alaska (Portage Bay, near Chil-
kat River), though not rare inland on the Yukon River,
breeding as far north as Circle City. The principal breed-
ing range of the lesser scaup is the interior of Canada,
from northern North Dakota and northern Montana to
the edge of the timber near the Arctic coast in the Ander-
son River and the Mackenzie River regions.

Migration Range—The route of migration in the fall
evidently tends toward the southeast, for at this season
the species is not uncommon in New England and is a
rare visitant of Nova Scotia and even of Newfoundland
and is accidental in Greenland and the Bermudas.

Aythya collaris (Donov.) Ring-necked Duck.

Breeding Range——The summer home of this species
seems to comprise two general areas separated by the
Rocky Mountains. The greater number breed in the in-
terior, from North Dakota and Minnesota north to Atha-
baska Lake and east to the western side of Lake Winni-
peg. It breeds rarely south to southern Minnesota (Min-
neapolis, Heron Lake), northern Iowa (Clear Lake) and
to southern Wisconsin (Lake Koshkonong; Pewaukee

196 APPENDIX

Lake.) Though eventually the species may be found
breeing in Alberta, at present there seems to be no cer-
tain nesting record for the entire Rocky Mountain chain
from New Mexico to Alberta. West of the Rockies the
ring-necked duck seems to breed in small numbers from
Fort Klamath, Ore., to southern British Columbia (Cari-
boo District.) It is said to breed also on the Near Islands,

Alaska.

Clangula clangula americana (Bonap.) American Gol-
den-eye.

Breeding Range.—This is one of the more northern-
breeding ducks, but its choice of hollow trees as nesting
sites prevents the extension of its breeding range into the
treeless Arctic regions, to which it seems well suited by
its hardy constitution. It has. been noted north to Un-
gava Bay, Labrador; Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay, and
Fort Good Hope, near the mouth of the Mackenzie River.
It is probable that the species breeds in the heavy timber
nearest to these places. In Alaska it breeds commonly in
the interior about as far north as the Arctic Circle, but is
very rarely seen on the coast. The species breeds from
Newfoundland to British Columbia, north to the Noatak
River, but the breeding range extends only a little into
the United States, to southern Maine (Calais, Magallo-
way River), northern New Hampshire (Lake Umbagog),
northern Vermont (St. Johnsbury), northern New York
(Adirondacks), northern Michigan (Neebish Island,
Sault Ste. Marie), North Dakota (Devils Lake), Mon-
tana (Flathead Lake) and in British Columbia so close
to the southern boundary that the species will probably
be found to breed in northern Washington.

Le ——— a

APPENDIX 197,

A typical form, Clangula clangula, breeds in northern
Europe and northern Asia, migrating southward to north-
ern Africa and southern Asia.

Charitonetta albeola (Linn.) Buffle-head.

Breeding Range.—In the nesting season the buffle-head
is almost wholly confined to Canada, but a few breed in
Wisconsin (Pewaukee Lake), northern Iowa (Storm,
Clear and Spirit Lakes), Wyoming (Meeteetse Creek),
Montana (Milk River, Flathead Lake.) It is a tolerably
common breeder in the northern two-thirds of Ontario,
and undoubtedly some pairs breed in Quebec and south-
ern Labrador, though it is as yet unrecorded from there,
from the Maritime Provinces and from Newfoundland,
_except as a rather rare visitant. In Manitoba and west-
ward to British Columbia it becomes more common as a
breeder and ranges north to Fort Churchill, Fort Rae, the
mouth of the Mackenzie and the upper Yukon, rarely to
the Yukon mouth. It has been taken as a rare straggler
on the west coast of Greenland (Godhaven, October;
Frederikshaab), and a few times in Europe.

Erismatura jamaicensis (Gmel.) Ruddy Duck.

Breeding Range——The principal summer home of the
ruddy duck is in the upper Mississippi Valley and the
contiguous portions of central Canada; it is rare east of
the Alleghenies ; breeds regularly from Maine to northern
Ungava; rare visitant in Newfoundland; nesting rarely
south to Massachusetts (Cape Cod) and probably in
Rhode Island (Sakonnet) ; tolerably common in southern
Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin, and probably breeds
casually in Ohio and Illinois. West of the Mississippi it

198 AP PENDES

breeds regularly to southern Minnesota and northwestern
Nebraska and rarely in Kansas. The breeding range then
dips strongly to the south in the mountains through Colo-
rado to northern New Mexico (La Jara and Stinking
Spring Lakes), central Arizona (Stoneman Lake, alti-
tude 6,200 feet), southern California (Los Angeles
County) northern Lower California to about latitude 31°
and probably northwestern Chihuahua (Pacheco.) The
breeding range on the Pacific slope extends north at
least to central British Columbia (Cariboo District) ; in
the interior to Great Slave Lake and Hudson Bay (York
Factory.) The above is the normal breeding range, but
this species has the peculiar habit of establishing colonies
far to the southward. Such colonies have been discov-
ered at Santiago, near the southern end of Lower Cali-
fornia, in the Valley of Mexico, at the Lake of Duenas,
Guatemala, and on the islands of Cuba, Porto Rico and
Carriacou. The breeding season of these isolated colo-
nies bears no relation to the usual breeding time in the
bird’s ordinary range. In northern North Dakota the
earliest eggs are deposited the first week in June; Mani-
toba and Saskatchewan incomplete sets were found the
middle of June; the same date—the middle of June—
marks the deposition of the eggs in central Colorado.
The first half of June may be said to be the usual time for
the beginning of nesting. On Cape Cod, Massachusetts,
downy young were taken Aug. 17; in northern New Mex-
ico, Sept. 17; in southern Lower California, Nov. 16; at
Lake Duenas, Guatemala, in June; while in Cuba and
Porto Rico eggs were taken in November, and on Car-
riacou Island in January.
THE END.

A PROPOSED LAW FOR BREEDERS

An Act to Encourage the Rapid Increase of Game and
Game Fish

SECTION 1. Farmers and other land owners and their les-
sees who undertake in good faith to increase game or game
fish shall be known and designated as game breeders.

Sec. 2. Any game breeder may make application to the
State game officer or officers (here insert the title of the
Warden or Commission) for a license permitting the appli-
cant to engage in the industry of game or game fish rearing.
Such application shall state that the applicant intends in
good faith to increase the game or game fish either by hand
rearing in captivity or wild-in the woods, fields or waters;
and shall contain a description by metes and bounds, of the
lands or waters to be used for the industry aforesaid. Said
State game officer, when it shall appear that such application
is made in good faith for the purpose aforesaid shall issue a
license permitting said breeder to take his game or fish on
the lands or waters during the open season for preserved
game and game fish and to sell the same alive for propa-
gation or as food as hereinafter provided.

Sec. 3. The open season for breeders shall be for game
from September 1 to March 1 both inclusive: for game fish
from April 1 to December 31, both inclusive. Live game may
be sold at any time for propagation by breeders to breeders.

Sec. 4. Game and game fish when sold as food shall only
be sold to licensed game dealers, who shall be required to give
a bond conditioned that they will not purchase or sell any
game excepting only game from licensed breeders properly
identified as herein provided; and foreign game, which shall be
identified in like manner and which may be imported during

the open season for breeders. The State game officer (here
insert title) shall issue licenses to dealers authorizing them
- to sell the game and game fish reared by breeders and game
legally imported from foreign countries and other States,
upon the payment of the sum of $50. [This amount might
be made smaller for small towns.—EDIToR. ]

Sec. 5. All licensed game dealers shall keep a game reg-
ister and shall enter on the same all game received and sold,
stating the kind and amount; from whom purchased, and the
date of shipment. Said register shall be open to inspection at
all times by the State game officers.

Sec. 6. Breeders who wish to sell game to be used as food
shall sell and ship said game only in packages plainly marked
with the name of the breeder, the date of sale, and the name
of the licensed dealer to whom said game is sold. Said pack-
ages shall also contain a label stating the kind and amount
of game or game fish contained in the package and a copy of
this label shall be forwarded to the pene game officer on or
before the date of such sale.

Sec. 7. Individuals and common carriers shall not receive
or carry any game sold unless the package shall be plainly
marked as aforesaid. The penalty for a violation of this
section shall be $100.

Sec. 8. Game dealers shall file an affidavit at the end of
the open season for breeders stating that they have not sold
any game or game fish contrary to law.

Sec. 9. Any game dealer who shall violate any of the pro-
visions of this act or who shall fail to file the affidavit afore-
said shall forfeit his license and shall also pay a fine of
$1,000.

Sec. 10. Any person who shall enter upon the lands owned
or leased by breeders with gun or fishing rod or other device
for taking game or game fish shall be fined in the sum of $25
and shall also pay the breeder $25 exemplary damages and $5
for each game mammal, bird or fish taken or destroyed to be
recovered in a civil action.

Sec. 11. Game and Fish laws and laws protecting vermin
shall not apply to breeders who are engaged in the industry of
increasing the game and fish.

FEEDING WILD DUCKS IN CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK

INDEX

ACORNS, 42

Allamuchy, N. J., ducks at, 69

Amateur Sportsman, quoted,
1G; 17,33, 41; 77, 18, 82,88,
92, 137

American duck clubs, 97

American golden-eye, 196

American Field, quoted, 88

Annual dues, 108

Appetite for legislation, 112

Artificial ponds, 6, 23, 24

Artificial rearing, 15, 49

Artificial shooting, 123, 124

Ashby decoy, 18

Attractive preserves,
made, 23

Audubon, cited, 55

how

BALDPATE, 171

Bantams, 52

Barn owl, 76

Bartram’s sandpiper, 153

Beechnuts, 42

Big bags, 6, 131

Black duck, 9; domestication
of, 10; at Fisher’s Island,
69; breeding range migra-
tion, 166

Black-head, 9, 194

Blood, bait, 83

Bluebill, 194

201

Blue-winged teal, 101, 178

Bonnett, quoted, 31, 103

Brambles, 29

Brant, 144

Breeding ground, 2; canvas-
back, 3; destruction of, 4;
value of, 4; see appendix

Breeders’ law, 141, 159; in
Colorado, 160

Breeders of game, 1, 101

Breeding, locally by clubs, 4;
canvasbacks, 10; sea ducks,
10; simple, 17

Breeding places, 19, 20

Breeding range, 12; see ap-
pendix

Brewster, William, quoted, 80

Briars, 29

Broadbill, 194

Brushwood, 29

Buffle-head, 197

Bureau of Biological Survey,
160; see appendix

Burroughs, John, quoted, 86

CACKLING GOOSE, 144
California marshes, 32
Canada, 10

Canada goose, 11, 33
Canada goslings, 51

Canvasback, 9; breeding

202

ground, 3; market value, 10,
155, 193

Carleton, quoted, 2

Carnegie, quoted, 95

Carp, 43, 96

Cats, 15, 75, 98, 146, 150

Cat-tails, 29

Celery, wild, 10, 27, 41

Central Park, N. Y., 70

Chamberlain, quoted, 98

Checks to increase, 78;
vermin

Cinnamon teal, 9, 181

Clement, H. P., quoted, 150

Clipping, 38

Club, how to form, 105, 108;
contract, 109; board of di-
rectors, 110; shooting leases,
110

Clubs, Ottawa, 83; in Massa-
chusetts, 117

Cobb, Nathan, quoted, 80

Colorado’s game commissioner,
151

Cooke, quoted, 3, 141

Cooper’s hawk, 84

Coops, 59

Cornmeal, 51

Cost, making ponds attractive,
80; of good shooting, 30;
wild ducks in England, 34

Cover, 27

Cramp, 63

Cranberries, 25

Crimes, 112

Crow, 81, 82

Cruelty, 127

Cygnets, 51

see

DAMS, 24
Darwin, quoted, 73

INDEX

Dealers, in wild ducks and
eggs, 33; foods, 40

Decoy, 18; note

Decoy men, 19

Decrease of game, 16, 125

Deer farming, 16

Deserting, 121, 123

Destruction of
grounds, 4

Difficult shooting, 132

Divers, sea ducks, 9

Diseases, 128

Dogs, 15, 75; useful, 89; 96,
140

Dog whistle, 66

Domestic enemies, 27

Double-brooded, 21

Drakes, 37

Draining marshes, 2, 12

Ducks, sale of, 5; imported, 6;
experiments with, 7; food
value, 7; half-bred, 18; age
of, 21; attitude towards
game fish, 26; food of, 27;
tame in presence of owner, 66

Duck breeding, simple, 17

Duck clubs, 41, 103, 117

Duck decoy, 18; note

Duck hawk, 18

Duck preserve, best place for,
25

Duck shooting, 25

Ducklings, easy to rear, 1381

Ducks’ paradise, 3, 25

Dusky duck, domestication of,
10

Dutcher, Dr., 68

breeding

EAGLE, 78, 79
Earthworms, 152
Economic question, 158

INDEX

Economic value of ducks, 161

Edgar, George, 6, 60

Edmonton, Alberta, 3

Eggs, sale of, 5; imported, 6;
stealing, 12; prices, 16; pur-
chase of, 31, 35; fragile, 52

Kel grass, 46

Kel-grass, 46

Elopements, 37

English books and magazines,
{6

English duck farmers, 5, 15, 31

English sparrows, 86

English syndicates, 103

English teal, 11

Evans, Wallace, quoted, 33;
game farm, 33; duck-meal,
50

FARMERS, 7; game laws inimi-
cal to, 159

Fairview Farm on Hudson, 34

Feeding grounds, 2

Fell’s reservation, 81

Ferrets, 96

Field, Dr., quoted, 85

Fish, attitude of ducks to-
wards, 26

Fisher, Dr., quoted, 147

Fisheries, commissioner of, 26

Fisher’s Island, 69

Flicker, 150

Florida dusky duck, 101, 169

“Flyers,” 118

Food, 21; fresh supply, 24, 26,
27, 40; insect, 28; grain, 40

Forester, Frank, quoted, 148

Forbush, quoted, 69, 86

Fox, 22, 72, 89, 90

Foxtail grass, 41

Frogs, 46, 88

203

Fryer, quoted, 89, 94
Furry enemies, 78; see vermin

GADWALL, 170

Game, abandonment of native,
158

Game, overflow of, 7; decrease,
16

Game enemies, superabundant,
74; see vermin

Game farmers, 15

Game farms, 31, 338, 34

Gamekeeper, 40; experiments,
5; education of, 77; neces-
sity for, 101, 105; wages,
106; successful in America,
128

Game keeping, 10

Game officers, 117, 158

Game parks, 4, 5

Game preserve, 10

Game preserving, scientific, 73

Game prices, 132; note

Game protective associations,
1025 144

Game refuges, 4, 5, 125

Game register, 113

Geese, wild, 9; luring, 114, 133;
nesting in captivity, 134;
prices, 134; eggs, 134; re-
quirements for breeding, 136;
water for, 138; incubation,
139; dogs, 140; second clutch,
decreasing, 140; in Alaska,
141; summer home, 142

Golden-eye, 9, 196

Goose callers, 118

Goshawk, 84

Gray ranch, 66

Green-winged teal, 9, 175

Ground enemies, 78; see ver-
min, 88, 89, etc.

204

Guinea hen, 6
Gun clubs, 111

HALF-BRED WILD DUCKS, 18

Hamilton, Dr., quoted, 71

Hand-reared duck, 121

Hand-rearing, 5, 12, 38, 101

Hatching house, 52

Hawk, 77, 83, 84, 85

Hawks and owls, 86

Hawk trap, 75

Heath-hen, 155

Hens, 35

Heron, 78, 87

Highland, N. Y., game farm,
34

Horn, use of, 66

Howard, Anson O., 82; note

Howe, W. A., quoted, 43

Hutchins goose, 143

ILLINOIS GAME FARM, 82

Inbreeding, 18, 122

Increase of game, 125

Incubators, 12, 56

Industry, profitable, 106; pre-
vented, 117.

Insects, 47, 50

Intruders, 27, 30

Islands, 29, 30, 90

JAYS, 76, 78, 87
Job, H. K., quoted, 16
Jones, Owen, quoted, 71, 76, 89

KEEPERS, education,77; attitude
of, 77; see gamekeepers, 40
Kite, 75

LAKE WoORTH, FLA., 69
Lantz, quoted, 94

INDEX

Law, every restriction tried,
125

Law, for breeders, 141, 159; in
Colorado, 160

Lawrence, R. B., quoted, 88

Laws, relating to game ene-
mies, 72

Laws, restricting sport, 2, 4,
156; English game act, 34;
trespass, 108; time to stop
making, 103

Leach, Warren R., quoted, 137

Leases, shooting, 110

Legislation, appetite for, 112

Lesser scaup duck, 194

License, 103

Licensed dealers, 101

Long Island preserve, 35

Luring ducks and geese, 114

MACPHERSON, Rev. H. A,,
quoted, 75, 85

MacFarlane, quoted, 81

Magpies, 76, 78, 87

Mallard, 6; best duck for game
preserve, 10; on open ponds,
29, 101; experiments with,
120, 162, 169

Mallard eggs, 35

Mandarin duck, 33

Manure, use of, 152

Marsh hawk, 85

Marshes, 32

Market, how supplied, 5

Market gunners, 6

Marthas Vineyard, 85

Mast, 29, 42

Meals, 50

Merit of field sports, 35

Middlesex Fells reservation, 69

Migration, appendix

INDEX

Migratory birds, 37

Mink, 90

Minnesota, 10

Mohler, J. R., report of, 130
Mole, 91

Mormon goose, 138
Muskrat, 92

NATURAL ENEMIES, 15, 21, 27,
71

Natural foods, 40, 44, 45, 47

Nests, 49, 54

Nesting grounds, 2

Nesting season, 21

Netherby Hall, 6

New Bedford, black ducks at,
69

Northrup, King & Co., 40

North Dakota, 10

Number of drakes, 37

Nut plantation, 151

OATES, CAPT., quoted, 22, 32,
note, 87, 49, 58, 94

O’Conor, J. C., quoted, 96

Ophthalmia, 129

Oregon, 10

Organisms in mud, 27

Ottawa club, 96

Our Feathered Game, quoted,
100, 118; cited, 144, 1538

Owl, 86; decoy owl, 82

Overflow of game, 7, 125

PARADISE, WILD DUCKS’ 3, 25,
100, see map

Pheasants, 6, 38

Pierce, Dr. R. V., 41, quoted, 44

Pike, 89, 92

Pinioning, 37, 38

Pin-tailed duck, 186

Plover, 146

205

Plover eggs, 147

Poison, 83

Polygamy, 21

Ponds, artificial, 6; location of,
24; abundant in America, 25;
desirable, 28; without cover,
how made | attractive, 29;
public, 102

Potamogeton, 44

Prairie grouse, 75, 154

Preferred stockholders, 108

Prejudice, 102

Preserve, 23

Price, quoted, 81

Prices, ducks, 15; eggs, 16; in
England, 32, 34; rented
hens, 35; market, 182, note;
geese, 1384; eggs in America,
35; ducks in America, 36

Princess Anne club, 99

Propagation, 5, 23, 24

Protective associations, 102

Public waters, 102

Purchase, time to, 36

QUAIL PRESERVES, ducks on, 24,
25
Quiet, 24

RABBITS, 81; foxes’ bread and
butter, 89; buffers of peace,
90

Ragged Island club, 99

Ranch, duck, 25

Rats, 75, 94, 119

Reeds and rushes, 29

Redden Quail club, 151

Redhead duck, 9; market value,
10; breeding range and mi-
gration, 192

Red-headed woodpecker, 78

206

Red-legged black duck, 167
Refuges, 4, 5

Remnant of game, 74
Rental, shooting, 105
Restoration of wild fowl, 114
Ring-necked duck, 195
Robin, 150

Rooks, 76

Ruddy duck, 9, 197

Ruffed grouse, 74

Rushes, 29

Safe preserves, 23

Sage grouse, 81

Sale of game, 101; of ducks,
105

Saltings, 34

Seaup duck, 9, 194

Sea ducks, 9; protection of, 10

Security, 21

Seton, Ernest T., quoted, 134

Sharp-shinned hawk, 84

Sharp-tailed grouse, 81

Shaw, quoted, 24, 29, 538, 115,
116

Shaw, Dr., 69

Shields, editor Shields’ Maga-
zine, 66

Shiras, Geo., 33, 83

Shooting, on preserves, 120,
126; difficult, 32; rental, 105

Shore birds, 7, 145 to 155
Shotgun, 83

Shoveller, 9, 183

Skunk, 119

Small shoots, 23
Smartweed, 45

Snipe, 7, 146; food of, 152
Sparrow hawk, 77
Spratt’s Patent, Ltd., 50

INDEX

Sprig-tailed duck, 9; ‘in Eng-
land, 10; pin-tail, 186

Stacks, 22

State game officers, 15

Stomach examinations, 85

Straddles, 128

Stuyvesant farm, 6

Stuyvesant, Rutherford, 6

St. Vincent’s Island, 45

Sunstroke, 129

Swamps, 7

Swans, 9, 11; black Australian,
51

Syndicates, 5, 106; estimate of
cost, 107, note; shares in,
107; number of members,
108; how formed, 109

TAME GAME, 127

Teal, 9; in England, 10; taken
by hawk, 84

Ten years of game keeping, 72,
note

Terrell, C. B., 40

Thompson, quoted, 77, 78, 82

Titusville, Fla., ducks at, 68

Tolleston club, 102

Townsend, Chas. C., quoted, 66

Tracy, Tom, 21

Trap, 37; vermin traps, 50

Trapping, 37; see decoy, 18,
note, vermin 83

Trespassers, 15, 146

Trout, 26

Turtles, 92

UPLAND GAME, 388, 108

Upland plover, 153

U. S. Department of Agricul-
ture, 16; appendix

Utah, ducks dying from dis-
ease, 129

INDEX

VERMIN, 22, 50; use of word in
America, 71, 72, 73, 74; im-
possible to exterminate in
England, 75, 76, 77; benefi-
cial, 78; 79 to 96; 108, 145,
149

Von Lengerke & Detmold, 82

WADERS, 7; protection of, 8;
145 to 155

Wapato, 10, 27, 43

Ware, R. H., quoted, 118

Waste places, 7

Water, 24

Water cress, 47

Weasels, 90

Wenz & Mackensen, 33

Whealton, 11; quoted,
geese, 183, 136, 187

Whealton, wild water fowl
farms, 33

White, R. B., 40

Widgeon, England, 10; Ameri-
can, 171

Widgeon grass, 45

Willows, 29, 30

Wild breeding, 38, 134

Wild celery, 10, 27, 41

Wild ducks, 9; paradise, 3;

sale of, 5; imported, 6; ex-

periments with, 7; food

value, 7; aesthetic value, 9;

fresh water ducks, 9; sea

ducks, 9; for sport and profit,

14; prices of, 15; food of,

27; trapping, 37

46;

207

Wild fowl, not true game in
England; see ducks, geese,
swans, etc.

Wild fowlers, 6

Wild geese, 9;
ground, 11

Wild rice, 27, 28, 41; bulletins
on, 42

Wilson, Hon. Woodrow, 112,
note

Wilson snipe, 154

Wild turkey, 155

Winged enemies, 78; see ver-
min

Winous Point club, 96

Wisconsin, 10

Wolves, 72, 90

Woodcock, 7, 145, 147, 148;
food of, 152; useful hint as
oy, allsyy

Wood-duck, 9, 83; nesting
places, 10; domestication, 11;
price, 36, 18, 152, 191

Woodpecker, 78

Woodruffe-Peacock, Rev. Adri-
an, quoted, 17, 129

breeding

YARDLEY, PA., 33

Yellow-legs, 146, 154

Young ducks, 59; feeding, 61;
taking to water, 62; on the
pond, 65

ZOOLOGICAL Park, N. Y., ducks
bred in, 70; crows in, 81

THE AMATEUR SPORTSMAN
THE “MORE GAME” MAGAZINE

Since December, 1908, The Amateur Sportsman has been
edited by Hon. Dwight W. Huntington, the author of “Our
Feathered Game” (Charles Scribner’s Sons) and other standard
books and essays on field sports.

Always an ardent sportsman, Mr. Huntington believed in se-
curing and enforcing restrictive game laws until through prac-
tical experience he learned that such legislation did not make
game abundant. He began to study this problem: ‘Can game
be made abundant in the United States, and, if so, by what
means ?”

The Amateur Sportsman is doing a work of incalculable
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thinking sportsmen as

AMERICA’S LEADING SPORTING MAGAZINE

Read what leading authorities say:

You are giving us an elegant paper, a great credit to the
current literature of American sports afield.

Washington, D. C. R. W. SHUFELDT, M. D.

You have certainly outlined a very attractive series of

articles. ;
DR. T. S. PALMER, U. S. Dept. Agriculture.
I wish you success. I am thoroughly with you and on your

side of the fence.
ROBERT B. LAWRENCH,
Chairman Legislative Committee, N. Y. State
Fish, Game and Forest League.

I like it and shall enjoy reading it in the future. . . . Your
articles alone should make it desirable to all who take an in-
terest in the preservation of birds. I shall look forward to
their publication with much pleasure.

Cambridge, Mass. WILLIAM BREWSTER.
From Admiral Evans:

Your editorial policy is just what we have wanted for years,
and if people will follow your advice it won’t be many seasons
before game will be found on the tables of our people as it
Was in my young days.

Washington, Nov. 20, 1909. R. D. EVANS.

The Information Department will gladly answer enquiries
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“Any man with sporting blood in his veins will be delighted
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ew

(From Mr. Huntirgton’s Introductory Chapter)

The plan of this volume is similar to that of “Our Teathered
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antlers, or a lot of skins in the search for a tenth earibou (all
caribou, like coons, look alike to me), but to the forests and
mountains, to pursue the animals the sportsmen know, stop-
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OUR WILD FOWL
AND WADERS

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CONTAINS 24 REMARKABLE ILLUSTRATIONS

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The author, a cheery optimist, asserts that America may
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Describes the breeding, migration and food habits of wild y
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