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In these three traps I caught seventeen quail-destroyers the first month I put them up, and I also got the toe of another hawk, and the following winter I got the rest of that hawk.
As proof that birds visit the same places, I will say that I haven’t caught over fifteen hawks and owls down there in any one winter, in those three traps, since.
SHELTER AND FEEDING PLACE FOR QUAIL
Well, the feed-racks did not seem to fill the bill in every way, so in a year or so I decided to try another scheme. I loaded up all the old junk lumber I could find and hauled it to the woods, and in one day another man and I completed ten little bungalows-in-the-rough. They are about one foot high in the rear, and four to five feet high in the front, with from five to six feet ground space, as shown in the illustration herewith.
Then, to complete my experiment, I begged ten bags of weed-seed from a neighbor who was hulling clover. I threw a bagful in each house, and then threw in, on top of the weed-seed, corn, wheat and buckwheat. In less than a week the birds visited every house, and on a cold, zero day I believe I have seen as high as fifty quail buzz out of one of these little, unpatented shacks. And best of all, they scratched right down through the grain and ate the weed-seeds first. I soon found I had made a hit, as the shacks furnished the birds shelter as well as food in the time of need, and a certain amount of protection from their natural enemies.