34 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



insects, mentioned in such reports, as are to be found within its 

 range. Its voice is essentially the same. Once exceedingly abundant 

 in the open country in Florida, it has been greatly reduced in num- 

 bers and mainly by its human enemies. It has long been a favorite 

 with sportsmen; its long open season, with little or no protection 

 in many places, has offered them attractive opportunities long after 

 the season in the North has closed. A steadily increasing number 

 of winter visitors have been tempted to spend part of their idle 

 time in hunting, where the shooting is mostly open and the birds 

 easily killed. The quail have shown the effect of this slaughter. 

 They have also suffered greatly from illegal trapping and netting 

 and from shooting out of season, mostly by poor whites and negroes. 

 Fortunately for the future of the Florida bobwhite the laws are 

 now better enforced and there are many large areas where no shoot- 

 ing is allowed and where public sentiment is protecting this and 

 all other desirable birds. 



COLINUS VIRGINIANUS TEXANUS (Lawrence) 

 TEXAS BOBWHITE 



HABITS 



George N. Lawrence (1853) first called attention to the characters 

 that separate the bobwhite of Texas from the two eastern forms. In 

 general appearance it is decidedly grayer than either of the eastern 

 forms. Mr. Lawrence described it more in detail, as follows : 



This somewhat resembles O. virginianus, but is smaller, and differs also in 

 having the lores white, in being without the conspicuous dark markings on the 

 back and wings, and the bright chestnut red so prevalent in the upper plumage 

 of that species; the bill is proportionately longer and narrower, the legs more 

 slender, and the black markings on the abdomen and breast are fully twice 

 as broad. 



The Texas bobwhite closely resembles the eastern form in behavior, 

 habits, and haunts. George Finlay Simmons (1925) gives us the 

 following long list of places in which it may be found : 



More or less open country, particularly in mesquite-chaparral-cactus pas- 

 tures ; old plantations, clearings, and cultivated fields ; open, semi-arid tree- 

 dotted, bushy pastures in farming country, particularly where such pastures are 

 interspersed with small bodies of woodland ; hay, grain, brown stubble, corn, 

 cotton, and open weedy fields ; clearings and brushy edges of woodlands ; 

 thickets, brush, and briar patches along edges of meadows and creeks; weedy 

 roadsides and fencerows; wooded hillsides; cedar brakes; cultivated fields. 

 Never in bottom woods or open praries. In fall and winter, among dead stalks 

 in cotton and corn fields. 



