56 Food of Birds. [Z0E 
taken away from that field nearly four thousand grains of barley 
during that one evening’s feeding. a 
In some parts of California there is a strong prejudice against 
the quail, owing to alleged damage to the grape. The evidence 
which I have thus far gathered shows that the quail do pick at 
the bunches of grapes, and not alone those bunches which are 
near or on the ground, but the damage which they cause seems 
over-estimated. Too often, mutilated bunches of grapes are sup- 
posed to be due to the presence of quail in the vineyard, but 
there are other birds and mammals, also, which vary their diet 
with grapes. I have examined a number of quail’s crops and 
gizzards without finding the presence of grapes, although the 
birds had been shot near and in vineyards. 
A quail’s crop sent to me from Los Gatos, by Mr. A. H. 
Hawley, contained twenty-five small grapes; others had a few 
grapes, seeds, anc poison-oak berries. 
Three very young birds of this species contained, besides a 
few minute seeds, eighteen, twenty-one, and twenty-seven ants 
respectively. Ants evidently form a large part of the food of the 
chicks of quails. 
The food of quail is mainly small seeds, and at times more or 
less green food is eaten; clover and the leaves of a species of 
Baccharis seem to be preferred. 
MOURNING Dove. Zenaidura macroura. Small seeds form 
_the principal food of this species according to the crops examined. 
From one individual collected in Lassen County, I took two- 
hundred and sixty-seven small pine seeds. 
RED-SHAFTED FLICKER, Colaptes cafer. Beside the insec- 
tivorous food of Picarian birds, the flickers eat largely of poison- 
oak berries, and I have also found apple in their stomachs. 
CALIFORNIAN WoopPECKER, Melanerpes formicivorus bairdi. 
This species is more given to a varied diet than usual with wood- 
peckers. Besides the fact, which is well known now, that they 
do eat acorns, various grains are also eaten, and I have known 
one of these birds to be killed by poisoned wheat put out for ground 
squirrels. Green corn in the field is eaten and the dry kernels 
stored away in crevices of trees, as is their practice with acorns. 
