Norwich bulletin., 1912-12-12
PROPAGATION vs. IMPORTATION
Second Article in Connecticut Sports
 mems Series.
(By Herbert K. Job. State Ornitholo-
 gist of ConnecticIIt. !

(By Herbert K. Job. State Ornitholo-
 gist of Connecticut.)
 In Connecticut, as in numerous other states. we have spent many thousands of dollars in importing foreign game birds, which have been distributed and liberated, with practically no re- suit. This is the nearly unanimous opinion of sportsmen of the state. The successful introduction of the China pheasant in Oregon is the one historic instance of success, and 1t has inspired false hopes and fruitless expenditures. An illustration of this is the utterly futile attempt, almost nation wide, to thus introduce the gray or Hungarian partridge from Europe. Occasional voyeys sometimes last a year or two, and a few broods of young are reared, as 1 myself have seen, but in the end, hitherto, they have always disappeared. gentleman in New York city who has wide acquaintance in England, says that even there they are obliged continually to restock the gray par fridge, at big expense, in order to keep 1t up on the preserves. It was right and proper for us to have given this 8 fair trial, as we have But it is not advisable to continue with a for lorn hope when there is better way.
 The better way is to propagate, in- stead of releasing imported stock The first article of this series described a simple and successful method, based upon the discovery that young game birds will stay with a hen, and can be raised by her in the open, without enclosures. An expert breeder states that, owing to the homing instinct in young birds, a dozen young thus reared are worth more in stocking a locality than hundreds of strange adult birds suddenly let loose which generally soon disappear
 Fundamental in birds is this homing instinct This is what draws the gold en plover, having migrated to distant Patagonia, back to the spot of it's birth on the dreary shores of the arc tic sea. So it is that ga1linaceous spe- cies. most of which do not migrate, are even more strongly attached to the place of their nativity.
 It has been supposed that game birds could not be propagated on large scale. This view is no longer tenable. The Oregon pheasant, now practically a native bird, and a splen- did one for sportsmen, as will be shown in the next article, is reared by thou sands and has been successfully in troduced in at least two dozen states Ef with open seasons. The recent pro- gress with quail breeding is encour- aging. A number of game farms in Massachusetts this year have raised hundreds of them. On a game farm in the middle west they have raised year i ly from 400 to 700 young quail, as a 1 side show to pheasants and they claim they could easily have raised great many more had they tried. On another ! pheasant farm they matured 75 young ruffed grouse in a season
 1 Propagation is also more economical than importation as a business prop osition for states to undertake. As an illustration, consider the work this season of the New York state game farm. The Oregon pheasant was the 1 species chosen as best for rigorous ] climatic conditions, interior New York
 being too severe for quail Breeding I stock of the above is in demand at $4
 per bird, or even more. Last spring
 they had breeding stock of about 7oO birds, worth, at the minimum
 $3,000. Instead of liberating these, they bred them in confinement, and, by the free range system mentioned above matured 5000 young, worth at least $20,OOO. Besides this they contributed 10000 eggs to farmers and others
 worth 50 cents each in the market These, under printed instructions, were
 set by the consignees under hens, and the young raised as above in the open with very little attention. According to the blanks returned, which were found by investigation to be largely truthful, the farmers and sportsmen
 themselves reared from these eggs tc
 maturity. 10000 birds, or 50 per cent
 These birds were worth $40,00o, mak-
 ing total of $60,000 worth of game
 birds raised from $3,000 worth. The
 total cost of running the game farm
 for year was less than s5,000. The
 breeding stock had been previously
 raised from a small stock at the start
 Was not this a better business prop.
 osition than turning loose the origfna breeding stock, with the chances large.
 ly in favor of its utter disappearance