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Show TJEW INDUSTRY IN PHEASANTS Interest Becoming Widespread and s Thousands of Birds Now Scattered , Throughout Country. ("iiy W. L. M'ATEE.) Conservation of the fauna including the game birds of the United States requires the strict enforcement o laws intended to control the shooting and marketing of wild birds, and necessarily nec-essarily limits both the period during -which they may be hunted and the number available to supply the increasing in-creasing demands of those who desire those table luxuries. This lack may be remedied by the product of aviaries, preserves, and . private parks, devoted to rearing of domesticated game, the marketing of which under suitable safeguards is already permitted in several of the states, indicating that American markets mar-kets will open more and more tc these domesticated substitutes to the fast disappearing wild game. At present there is no lack of de- mand for pheasants for various pur- poses. Owners of private preserves, and state game officials, pay profitable prices for certain species for stocking their covers, zoological and city parks and owners of private aviaries are ready purchasers of the rarer and more beautiful species, and large Ringneck Pheasant. numbers of dead pheasants are annually annual-ly imported from Europe to be sold for several times the price they bring in European countries. The demand for pheasants is increasing. Ringneck pheasants have long been established in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, and are less common in the wild state in Massachu- j setts, New York, Indiana and Kansas ! Efforts to acclimatize pheasants in ' the United States are of comparative- j ly recent origin, though earlier than r"- ' is popularly supposed. The few pheasant stomachs ex-v ex-v amined indicate that these birds are very fond of grain. Oats and wheat composed about 34 per cent, of the food j of 12 ringneck pheasants collected in Oregon and Washington and S2.5 per cent, of the stomach contents of two English pheasants, from-British Co- lumbia. But all of these birds were taken in September, October and December; De-cember; hence it is probable that all of this grain was waste. The next largest item of fd in these stomachs was insects, consisting entirely of lar-van lar-van of March flies. One stomach con-, con-, tained no fewer than 360 of these larvae lar-vae and another 432. The remainder of the food included acorns, pine seeds, browse, peas, rose hips, lupine, bur clover, black mustard and chick- weed. From 200 to 960 kernels of wheat and oats -were taken by various birds; about 200 peas were found in one stomach, but it was evident that these were the old and partly decomposed refuse of the harvest. Twenty-three acorns and 200 pine seeds were taken by the birds which ate the largest amount of mast, and about S00 capsules cap-sules of chickweed, containing more - than S.O00 seeds, were iu the stomach of the best weed seed eater. What is most evident is that pheasants pheas-ants are gross feeders; their capabilities capabili-ties for good or harm are great. If a number of them attack a crop they are likely to make short work of it, or if they devote themselves to weed seeds or insect pests they do a great deal of good. It seems therefore that the question of the economic value of pheasants is peculiarly a local one. Much depends on the proportion of -' land under cultivation, the kind of JT i crops raised, and the quantity of wild food available. Apparently the chances are about even that Imported pheasants will or will not become useful economic factors. |