392 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



trict are waging to save him from extinction. None know better than the 

 farmer and orchardist the incalculable benefit he is to field, garden and 

 orchard. From "early morn' 'til dewy eve," bright of eyes and swift 

 of legs, the Bob Whites are busy Avith the destruction of noxious insects 

 and weed pests. He is not regarded as a trespasser, but is entertained 

 as a royal guest, whose stay would be indefinitely prolonged. Tiiie it is, 

 that it has taken science a long time to discover what our agriculturists 

 have known about the value of this bird as his chief assistant among 

 the feathered tribe, but it is making up its silence now by proclaiming its 

 virtues from, the housetops. It is officially recorded that examinations 

 of many hundreds of stomachs and crops of these birds disclose them 

 crowded with the seeds of noxious and troublesome weeds, his diet for 

 almost half the year. Upon this a Government report says: "It is 

 reasonable to suppose that in the states of Virginia and North Carolina 

 from September 1 to April 30 there are four Bob Whites to each square 

 mile of land, or 354,820 in the two states. The crop of each bird holds 

 half an ounce of seed and is filled twice a day. Since at each of the two 

 daily meals weed seeds constitute at least half the contents of the crop, 

 or one-fourth of an ounce, a half ounce daily is consumed by each bird. 

 On this basis, the total amount of weed seeds consumed hy Boh Whites 

 from September 1 to Ajwil 30 in Virginia and. North Carolina amounts 

 to 1,341 tons." May I inquire what the harvest of weeds would have 

 been had each of these seeds produced its own? Does not this plead 

 trumpet-tongued in his defense? But this is not all science teaches us 

 of the aid this bird is giving all classes of those who toil that we may 

 live. Where insects abound, Bob White plays no favorites in his labors 

 of extermination. Alike he wars upon the chinch bug, the grasshopper, 

 the potato bug, the cotton-boll wevil, the codling moth and other devas- 

 tating bugs and insects. In a letter to the Department of Agriculture 

 touching the voracious appetite of this bird for such pests, a gentleman 

 from Kansas writes : ' ' On opening the crop we found about two table- 

 spoonsful of chinch bugs," and when a consultation of authorities dis- 

 closes that this bug has cost the farmers at least 100 millions of dollars 

 per year, you may well stand aghast at the formidable array of facts 

 and figures — which admit of no dispute — that Bob White, above all his 

 feathered brothers, is entitled to the proud name of the farmer's friend. 

 It is not alone for gain that this bird is so firmly fixed in the af- 

 fections of the farmer. Incense to its many other virtues rise from count- 

 less thousands of happy homes all over this imperial empire of ours. 

 Rich in sentiment, witli ear attuned to Nature 's symphonies, the farmer 

 revels in the music Bob White contributes to the melody of its grand 



