532 GAME BIEDS OF CALIFORNIA 



be considered as seriously affecting either the horticultural or viti- 

 cultural interests of the state. 



The grain secured by quail is evidently picked up casually, no 

 special search being made for it. Only one instance of quail enter- 

 ing a field for grain has been reported (Beal, 1910, p. 11). In no 

 month of the year does grain constitute more than 12.4 per cent of 

 the food for the month. Forage, including under that term grass 

 blades, and leaves of numerous plants, is taken in varying amounts 

 during the year, but most abundantly during the spring months 

 when weed seed is scarcest. Leaves of bur clover, and other clovers 

 including alfalfa and "filaree," are found most commonly; grass 

 blades occur in quite a number of stomachs. 



Weed seeds are the staple and most important item in the food 

 of the quail. Seeds of more than seventy species of plants have been 

 identified in the crops and stomachs of these birds. Among those of 

 great economic importance, and most frequently eaten by quail, are 

 seeds of tarweed, mayweed, bur thistle, lupine, bur clover, deerweed, 

 vetch, turkey mullein, sumac and poison oak, alfilaria (filaree), 

 geranium, black mustard, miner's lettuce, red maids, pigweed, chick- 

 weed, catchfly, wire grass, sorrel, sedge, and ray grass. The quanti- 

 ties of these seeds eaten by quail may be conjectured by noting the 

 analyses of material taken from individual birds. One stomach held 

 83 kernels of barley, 592 seeds of geranium, 560 of tarweed, 40 of 

 bur thistle, 48 of clover, 80 of alfilaria, 704 of timothy, 32 of catchfly, 

 and 5 of snowberry; 2,144 seeds in all. Another contained 1,696 

 geranium seeds, 14 of bur thistle, 24 of knotweed, 14 of tarweed, 38 

 of bur clover, 148 of alfilaria, 12 of ray grass, and two unknown pieces ; 

 total 1,944 seeds and one pod (Beal, 1910, pp. 12-13). More rarely 

 quail feed on acorns or on the seeds of the parasite, dodder. The 

 young quail are more insectivorous in diet and take many ants. After 

 they are about a week old their diet begins to be more like that of 

 the adults. 



The enemies of quail are numerous. Wildcats are about the 

 worst enemies of these birds, although certain hawks, and also gray 

 foxes and coyotes figure in varying degrees. Dixon (MS) reports 

 finding the remains of a California Quail in the stomach of a wildcat 

 killed at Petaluma, Sonoma County, December 29, 1908. A Prairie 

 Falcon in the Swarth collection, taken December 13, 1901. tit San 

 Fernando, Los Angeles County, contained remains of dove in the 

 crop and of quail in the stomach, both organs being entirely filled. 

 J. Grinnell (MS) has shot a Cooper Hawk in the act of eating a 

 Valley Quail. While hunting or tramping about in quail-inhabited 

 country it is not an uncommon thing for a person to find here and there 

 heaps of (luail feathers, each heap indicating wliei'e one or another of 



