Birds of a feather

 Connersville Courier, March 4, 1910

THE SUPPLY

EXHAUSTED

No more Hungarian partridges or Mongolian pheasants will be distributed for stocking game preserves in Indiana this spring, save where promises have been made and even then, some of the promises will have to be cut down a little.

The Pheasant Family

State Fish and Game Commissioner Z.T. Sweeney of Columbus has announced that he will be unable to get as many of the imported game birds as he had ordered, and he will be unable to fill any additional orders. 

He has been getting numerous letters from all parts of the state from farmers and others who wanted some of these birds to stock preserves and the inquiries have also come from other states.

But a letter to Sweeney from his importers to Philadelphia states that his last order for birds has been cut from 3,800 to 2,800 and that no more can be furnished for some time.

Indiana was the first state to establish game preserves among the farmers, such as are found in Bartholomew and neighboring counties. Sweeney decided five or six years ago that the game preserve idea in which farmers would join and sign an agreement to keep their lands closed to hunters for a period of three years would be a good way to solve the problem of rapidly disappearing quail and that it would also be a good chance to introduce a species of game bird that was hardier and larger than the quail, so that if weather conditions etc. did kill off the quail, then the imported bird could be gaining a foothold and taking the quail's place.

This experiment was tried with the Hungarian partridges and Mongolian pheasants, and it has proven a great success.

The success of the experiment has caused numerous people to ask for shipments of the birds.

Sweeny began importing game birds for Indiana he has turned about 18,000 partridges and pheasants loose. Those birds multiply rapidly and he estimates that about 40,000 are now to be found in various parts of the state.

NOTE: The Hungarian partridge is also known as the gray partridge and while it may have been introduced to Indiana in 1910, it apparently isn't common now. It does not appear to be endangered.

Mongolian pheasants are evidently not too inspiring, and while they are slightly different, being a bit larger. That taps me out on North American game birds.

The buzzard, meanwhile ....