Bob-White 257 



fact thai in the South a cc)\cy has been seen, year after year, in a faxorite 

 locaUty for nK)re than a (|uarler of a century. There they increase so fast 

 that they are able to inainlaiii themselves for years, in spite of their numerous 

 enemies; but in the North they succumb to the rigors of severe winters. 



Bob-white feeds ahnost entirely on the ground, e.xcept when driven by 

 deep snows to seek berries and seeds from the shrubbery. Feeding by prefer- 

 ence in the open, the birds usually keep within a short distance of the cover 

 afTorded by thickets, swamps or rank grain. They usually sleep in the open, 

 where flight in all directions is unobstructed. 



Probably something like 400,000 sportsmen now go out 

 Value*"'"^ from the cities of this country each year to hunt Bob-white. 



This bird has a cash value to the farmer and land-owner, 

 for he can demand and obtain from the sportsman a fair price for the birds 

 killed on his property. The annual Quail crop, if judiciously handled, is worth 

 millions of dollars to the farmers of this country. In many cases, shooting 

 rentals more than pay the taxes of the farm, without detracting in any way 

 from its value for agricultural purposes. Bob-white pays the greatest part 

 of the tax in many school districts, thus paying for the education of the chil- 

 dren. Many thousands of dollars are spent in many states in leasing land and 

 in holding field trials of dogs. In these trials no shooting is done, the dogs 

 merely pointing the birds. 



On the farm, Bob-white comes into closer contact with the crops, year after 

 year, than any other bird, yet rarely appreciably injures any grain or fruit. 

 Through the investigations of the Bureau of Biological Survey, of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, it is now well known that Bob-white 

 ranks very high as a destroyer of many of the most destructive insect pests. 

 Among those eaten are potato beetles, cucumber beetles, wire worms, weevils, 

 including the Mexican cotton-boll weevil, locusts, grasshoppers, chinch bugs, 

 squash bugs and caterpillars. Many of these insects are destroyed by scores 

 and hundreds. Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice, of Clark University, gives the 

 following as eaten by captive birds. Each number given represents the insects 

 eaten during a single meal by one bird: Chinch bugs, 100; squash bugs, 12; 

 plant-lice, 2,326; grasshoppers, 39; cutworms, 12; army worms, 12; mosquitos, 

 568; potato beetles, loi; white grubs, 8. 



The following records are taken from a hst which she gives to show the 

 number of insects eaten by Bob-white in a day: Chrysanthemum black-flies, 

 5,000; llies, 1,350; rose-slugs, 1,286; iniscellaneous insects, 700, of which 300 

 were grasshoppers; and insects, 1,532, of which 1,000 were grasshoppers. Mrs. 

 Nice gives a list of 141 species of insects eaten by the Quail, nearly all of which 

 are injurious, and Dr. C. F. Hodge remarks that a bird which eats so many 

 injurious insects is welcome to the beneficial ones as well; for, apparently, 

 if we could have enough Bob-whites, they would lea\e nothing for the useful 

 insects to do. 



