EASTERN BOB WHITE 29 



work, or by poultry and cattle. Among the destroyers of eggs he 

 mentions, in addition to the enemies named above, blue jays, turkeys, 

 and red ants; the ants enter the egg as soon as the membrane is 

 punctured by the emerging chick, which is literally eaten alive; out 

 of 278 nests studied by Louis Campbell in 1928, 34 were taken over 

 by ants. 



After hatching, young quail are preyed upon by most of the more 

 active enemies named above, to which must be added turkeys, guinea 

 fowl, pheasants, and shrikes. The chief winged enemies of the older 

 young and adults are Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks, and in the 

 North the goshawk. The Buteos are mainly, or wholly, beneficial. 

 Mr. Stoddard (1931) exempts the sparrow hawk from blame and 

 says : " In several instances individuals took up quarters temporarily 

 on the fence posts of propagating enclosures and made forays against 

 the large grasshoppers on the ground beneath, without harming the 

 quail chicks in the least." In favor of the marsh hawk, he writes: 



In view of the fact that not more than 4 quail were discovered in approxi- 

 mately 1,100 pellets, marsh hawks can hardly be accused of making any serious 

 inroads on the number of quail in the region. On the other hand, one or more 

 cotton rats were found in 925 of these pellets. Since cotton rats destroy the 

 eggs of quail, the marsh hawk is probably the best benefactor the quail has in 

 the area, for it is actively engaged in reducing the numbers of these rodents. 

 Remains of at least 14 snakes, most of which were colubrines, were discovered. 

 These also are probably eaters of quail eggs. 



Diseases. — The chapters on parasites and diseases, in Stoddard's 

 (1931) report, were contributed by Dr. Eloise B. Cram, Myrna F. 

 Jones, and Ena A. Allen, of the Bureau of Animal Industry. 

 They are well worth careful study, but are too long (110 pages) and 

 too technical for any adequate presentation here. Suffice it to say 

 that bobwhites are attacked by many of the same parasites and 

 suffer from many of the same diseases as ruffed grouse. Among 

 the Protozoa the most important are those which cause malaria, 

 coccidiosis, and blackhead. Nematodes, or roundworms, were found 

 " in a high percentage of the birds examined " ; 16 species were iden- 

 tified, and their life histories explained. In the intestines five 

 species of tapeworms were found and similarly described. As ex- 

 ternal parasites, lice, ticks, mites, and fleas are mentioned. Among 

 the nonparasitic diseases the following are fully described: Foot 

 disease, bird pox, dry gangrene, chicken pox, " nutritional roup," 

 aspergillosis, " quail disease," and tularemia. This brief summary 

 and other references to Stoddard's (1931) work give a very inade- 

 quate idea of the wealth of material that his exhaustive report con- 

 tains; it must be read to be appreciated; some of the interesting 

 chapters can not even be summarized here. 



