The Newtown bee., 1905-03-03
MR SPERRY'S FEEDING RACKS
 FOR BIRDS.
WRITTEN FOR THE BEE BY c. G. M.

| A hard winter like the present al- ways sets sportsmen to making in- quiries of each other as to how the game birds have endured the season. A few people realize, though many do not, that the condition which destroys the birds is not so much the cold or the snow or the sleet, as the lack of food which these conditions produce. If creature whose native habitat is as far north as this can get all the food it wants it will live through any win ter that the climate can afford. But let the creature go hungry and the story is very different one. Not only may it perish of cold, but in it's en- feebled condition it is easy prey for it's natural enemies. Any one going out with young bird dog whose nose has not yet learned to distinguish game birds from others, while the snow is deep and the cold intense, will be able to pick up under nearly every bit of sheltered cover one or two song birds killed by the winter, and every one of them will be starved to the bone | Never will fat bird be found frozen to death.
 There is one man in Connecticut who has always had the wise belief that the way to obtain increase among our game birds is to protect them at home, rather than to try to restOck depleted localities from abroad. In l of 1,;o ,>1, ID sharp opposition from men whose only wish is to hog the maximum number for themselves, law or no law, but sometimes he has won good friends by his genuine and unselfsh thought for the birds and the future. This man is B. Knight Sperry of New Haven, a brother of Congressman Sperry, and there is one idea of Mr Sperry's which has won appreciation from friend and opponent alike. This is his feeding rack for birds. Some years ago he es- tabliShed a game preserve in the town of Hampton, not for his own gun, but for the restocking of a country which had been so depleted of game that his kennelman could not find birds enough to break his dog. The preserve was a simple affair, merely an agreement be-
 tween friends and neighbors to pro. hibit all shooting on a few hundred
 acres of adjacent territory. Each agreed to make that territory an ab
 SOlute safe harbor of refuge for game
 birds. MT Sperry went trifle farther
 bought few quail, had a bit of ground
 plowed early in the season, and sowed
 it to buckwheat and other grain which
 he let stand and fall for the birds
 This enterprise did so well that the
 country about Hampton rapidly be
 came restocked. But when the harc
 winter came the quail were decimate6 and it was necessary to send west fol
 more birds in order to make the re-
 stocking more rapid.
 Three or four years ago MT Sperry
 heard of a half-famished flock of Quai
 in Bethany, near friend s house, anC he made arrangements to have then fed, but frequent storms covered the : grain so that the birds could not feec , regularly, and great quantities of grair were wasted under the snows. Ther he thought of the possibility of pro tecting the feed by roof, and finally had a rack built in a form which ha! !. thoroughly proved it's value. He in
 structed joiner to build a box of inch stuff six feet long, three and z , half inches wide and the same deptt (all inside meaSureS). This was divided by partitions set at three and half inch intervals. One end of th1s nest of boxes was raised on builder! ''horse" at an angle of 45 degrees, anC a roof of boards two feet wide was sup ported four or five inches above it, t( keep out the rain and snow The racl was taken to Bethany and placed il the cover where the birds had been fe( before, and little grain was scattered about. The trough or rack was filled with mixed buckwheat and wheat, re quiring six or eight quarts of the mix ture. The next day when MT Sperr. < and his friend went to the rack ther' were indications that the birds hat been there, and the flock was fount near by in the cover. The day afte they went again and there was, not onl \ the one, but two coveys close to tn I rack, and a few days later when the
 went again there was a third cOVey