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Show By JIM RHODYr-: - 7 WIII.IIMIIMI i ll III t ' Instinct or Reason? Ralph Pogue, of the Missouri conservation commission relates these stories which stir speculation as to whether creatures of the wild are able to reason, or depend entirely en-tirely Upon instinct: While fishing on Lake Norfolk last summer, Frank Watts and Summerfield Jones, of West Plains, Mo., claim to have witnessed a minnow play dead in order to evade a pursuing bass. The fishermen first noticed the minnow skipping wildly through the water, but when it reached the shallow edge of the bank, it turned upon its side, evidently evi-dently playing dead. After a few minutes, apparently assuming danger dan-ger was past, it turned upright and started swimming slowly toward deep water. But its strategy had been in vain. Suddenly the surface of the lake exploded and a big bass took the minnow under. There has been verification, Pogue says, of a "tall tale" printed in several Missouri newspapers about a wounded goose which was rescued res-cued by one of his fellow-geese. Winston E. Locker, of Iantha, Mo., says that James Wadlow claims to have shot the goose. Wadlow's story was that while he and two friends were duck hunting hunt-ing near Sumner, a flight of geese came over and Wadlow fired twice at one of the birds, wounding it. He avers another goose dived about 10 feet to get under the injured comrade, which alighted on the second goose's back, and carried it for about 150 feet until the wounded wound-ed bird was able to wing away on its own power. AAA Elusive Bird It is no secret that many expert trap shooters with very good records rec-ords seldom get Bonasa umbellus the ruffed grouse on the fly. Any reasonably good shot can hit a clay pigeon, but it is a much different dif-ferent story when a rocketing grouse is the target. The gunner must have his mind completely on his work when he is trying to bag this king of all game birds. Grouse very seldom fly in a straight line and, as every grouse hunter knows, they have the infuriating faculty of managing to get tree or shrub between them and the gun in practically nine out of every ten cases. Their curving flight is very rapid and their amazing speed almost ' makes the hunter dizzy as he watches the bird dodge around hemlocks and pines so fast that there is very little chance to get a bead on it at all. AAA Thieves stealing public property are reported to the authorities. Game is public property, game violators are truly thieves and reporting sttch violators vio-lators is a moral law. AAA Stunted Fish The problem of stunted fish is not new. As early as 1875, Frank Buckland had published in his book, "Log-book of a Fisherman and Zoologist," comments on the kinds of fish seined from a small pond in England. He wrote: "It was a very extraordinary thing to remark that, as a rule, the fish we caught were either very little or very big; there seemed to be no intermediate size. I cannot quite account for this, but it is worthy of remark that there were no predaccous fvsh among these herbivorous fish. It is generally the case where you have "too many roach or crap, and no jack or perch, i.e., all sheep and no wolves, the fish are exceedingly abundant, but are all very small. It is necessary nec-essary in stocking ponds always to consider the balance of life, and put into them such as will keep down super - abundant population, and therefore prevent degeneration of the stock of vegetable feeders." AAA Predator Data The fish and wildlife service is recommending that farmers avoid indiscriminate shooting and trapping trap-ping of small predators, and rely instead on selective trapping to take the occasional poultry-killing skunk or weasel. It also urges that nesting boxes be placed for use of small species of owls. The service points out that certain perdatory animals which keep mice under control are among the farmer's best frip'irts |
