124 The Ottawa Naturalist. [Dec. 



done in winter time, but more definite evidence is required to 

 make sure. Of course, the bird is much relished as food and on 

 this account alone is well worthy of being preserved. 



There is one thing that may be said in regard to the status 

 of birds as destroyers of insects. A great many useful insects 

 are very minute and would thus escape detection. Others have 

 stings or look so like bees or wasps as to readily pass for them. 

 On the other hand a great many pests are large, such as orthop- 

 tera and lepidoptera and are thus more likely to attract atten- 

 tion. Of course a tird in seizing a grub may unwittingly 

 destroy half a hundred parasites and so do harm, on the other 

 hand it may go further and kill hyperparasites which prey upon 

 true parasites. 



There is no doubt that many bird lovers go too far in their 

 claims of hird usefulness just as some entomologists go to the 

 other extreme in minimizing their usefulness. As a matter of 

 fact many of our worst pests are hardly influenced at all by 

 birds. I may cite as an example the Hessian-fly, and other small 

 insects. It is also generally a mistake to consider birds of first 

 importance in the suppression of severe insect outbreaks. 

 They doubtless help, the cases cited above beinga few examples, 

 but they are far behind predaceous and parasitic insects in such 

 work. Their aid, however, is far greater when pests exist in 

 normal numbers. Then, by keeping them so, by picking off 

 the surplus, thev are accomolishing much in retaining the bal- 

 ance of nature. 



NOTES ON THE QUAIL. 



A reference to quail in Mr. Saunder's article in the Octo- 

 ber issue on bird preservation, noticed during an enforced con- 

 finement to the house, is responsible for these few items about 

 the doings of a very gallant little gentleman. The remarks 

 are only scientific in being accurate, but spending each winter 

 on a club property of some hundred thousand acres in South 

 Carolina, with a naturalist for a manager, a crowd of observant 

 darky guides, and a changing group of guests, talking game 

 and game habits every evening, Coliiius virginianus has become 

 a familiar friend. 



Our American Quail, so called, is an Englishman in his 

 courtesy to his woman kind, his bulldog fighting powers and 

 his clinging to customs, that, in a new country with progressive 

 neighbors, might well be changed. He takes his tiirn sitting 

 on the eggs; if weather conditions are favorable to a second 

 brood, fosters the first chicks until the two bevies unite into 

 the families of twentv odd that sometimes gladden our eyes, 



