118 



QUAIL— BOB WHITE. 



Description. 



Adult male. Upper parts variegated with chestnut, black, gray and tawny; 

 interscapulars with broken black bars ; inner vane of tertials widely margined with 

 creamy buff; tail ashy gray, the inner feathers finely mottled with buffy; front of the 

 crown, a band from the bill to beneath the eye and a band on the upper breast black ; 

 throat and a broad line from the bill over the eye white; sides chestnut, margined 

 with black and white; lower breast and below white barred with black. 



Adult female. Similar but duller and the throat, line over the eye, forehead and 

 lores buff; little or no black on the upper breast. 



Nest, on the ground, arched over by grass or weeds. Eggs, ten to fifteen, pure 

 white. 



EUFFED GEOUSE— PAETEIDGE. 



A very variable species; general color of the upper parts much variegated with 

 black, chestnut buffy and gray, sometimes chestnut and sometimes gray prevailing; 

 sides of the neck with large tufts of broad glossy black or coppery colored feathers ; 

 tail varying from pearly gray to rich chestnut, irregularly barred and mottled with 

 black; a broad black or coppery band near the end; tip gray; throat and breast 

 creamy, barred with blackish or brown. 



Nest, on the ground in woods. Eggs, eight or ten, buff, sometimes faintly 

 speckled with brown, 



CONCLUSION. 



There are other families of birds more or less directly beneficial or injurious 

 to our interests, but space will not permit an extended notice of each. Even the 

 little Humming-bird, which is generally supposed to feed only on the nectar of 

 flowers, is a destroyer of insects, and also helps to pollenize many blossoms. Enough, 

 I trust, has been said to impress upon my readers the great value of the majority 

 of our birds to the agriculturist. 



I have seen estimates of the amount of damage done to the crops by insects in 

 various countries, including our own Province, and although they usually stand at 

 some millions of dollars annually, I believe they are much below the mark. It is 

 difficult to form an estimate of the yearly loss from this cause to ordinary field crops, 

 because the plants are crowded so thickly together that a large proportion may be 

 destroyed in the earlier growing stages without being noticed, and it is only when 

 the matured crop fails to reach the expected quantity that we realize the fact that 

 something has gone wrong, but unfortunately it is then too late to remedy the matter. 

 In our gardens we can more readily see the amount of injury done by insects, and 

 can take measures to reduce it; but in spite of our efforts the loss is still enormous. 

 What would it be if we had not the birds to assist in keeping down the swarm of 

 insect life? The great trouble now is that we have not sufficient number of birds 

 to keep the balance between vegetable and insect life in our favour. 



We know that the common cut-worm causes much loss every year in spite of 

 the fact that almost all our ground-feeding birds eat great numbers of them, and 

 that the birds that feed among the trees and on the wing destroy very many of the 



