Shall We Save the Quail from Extermination? 



R. W. Shufeldt 



Recently, a number of our periodicals have published the suggestion that 

 our quails be placed on the song-bird list, to be protected in the same manner 

 as the latter by federal laws enacted for the purpose. In my opinion, this is 

 an admirable, not to say highly necessary proposition ; and you may take my 

 word for it that, unless this is done, and done within the next few years, all 

 of our species of quails will be reduced to the very verge of extinction and in 

 due course entirely exterminated. Now we may look for the sportsmen and 

 hunters of the country to make a vigorous protest against any such legislation 

 being put into effect ; they will probably rise to a man and attempt to prove that 

 the present state and federal laws, enacted for the protection of our game-birds, 

 are so framed that through their operation quails are not only not being reduced 

 in numbers all over the country, but that they are actually upon the increase. 



I have been a hunter of quails and a student of ornithology for over half 

 a century ; not in any casual way either, but seriously, continuously, and always 

 with a definite purpose in view. Those who know me best will be the last to 

 say that I would support such an act as is proposed above, unless I was abso- 

 lutely certain that the necessity for it had been more than amply demonstrated. 

 Moreover, I would be the last to wish to deprive the sportsmen of the country 

 of the pleasure they have in shooting quails every season, and the hundreds 

 of others who trap them all the year round! 



Not only are our beautiful bob-whites of the eastern half of the country 

 being reduced steadily in numbers every year, but the ten species and sub-species 

 of the western forms are being practically exterminated with marked and certain 

 rapidity. Our bob-white is one of the grandest little birds that exists in our 

 entire avifauna, and the various forms of quails or partridges, which are found 

 in the Pacific tier of States and elsewhere in the West, stand among the most 

 beautiful species that we have of the feathered world. I have had these 

 birds alive on many occasions, and I have photographed from life not only 

 specimens of our bob-whites, but also several species of the western forms, as 

 the plumed quail (O. p. plumifera) ; the chestnut-bellied scaled quail (C. J. 

 castanogastris) ; the California quail (L. c. calif ornica), and others. Two of my 

 photographs selected from this list are here reproduced as illustrations, one being 

 of the Texan bob-white and the other of the California quail. They were taken 

 the size of life, and are faithful representations of these most beautiful birds. To 

 return, however, to the matter of the gradual destruction of our quails, before I 

 touch upon the value of these birds to the American farmer and to agriculturists 

 generally, I would like to point to the time when, three-quarters of a century ago. 

 this system of extermination conunenced. Speaking of the eastern bob-white, 

 Wilson, writing in the early part of last century, tells us that "They remain 



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