WATKINS ON BIRDS THAT NEST IN MEADOWS. 69 



• 

 the fall of the year the different co\^eys represent one or more entire 

 broods, they not separating until they pair off the next April. The 

 Quail is confined, I think, in Michigan, to the lower peninsula, although 

 there are reports which would show that it has straggled farther north. 

 It is not found, as near" as I can determine, in any numbers much north 

 of the southern boundary of Roscommon county, the influence of the 

 great lakes upon the isothermal lines in this state probably influencing 

 the boundary line of their habitat on the north. In the southern tier.s 

 of counties, the Quail usually nests in the hay fields, and now that the 

 mowing machine and horse rake do nearly all the work, every nest so sit- 

 uated is destroyed. The farmer usually wishes to protect the Quails, 

 but the nests, which are hidden in a tuft of clover or grass, with the 

 blades neatly pulled together overhead, defy apprehension and when 

 once frightened away b}' the machines, the sitters never return. This 

 fact of so many nests being broken uj) coupled with the lack of pro- 

 tection from the rigor of winter as the thrifty agriculturist has each 

 and every shrub and vine cut from the fence corners and along the road 

 side, means fully as much in its very noticeable diminution in numbers, 

 as does the yearly onslaught of the hunters. Various gun clubs in the 

 state have already made efforts at restocking the country with Quails 

 b}' importations from Kansas and Nebraska. The eggs are usually from 

 eighteen to twenty-five in number, pure white and top shaped. Its food 

 consists of insects, grains and seeds in the summer and fall, and in winter 

 almost entirely of wild seeds. In the crop of one which I examined, a 

 remarkably large seed for the bird to swallow was sent for identification 

 to Prof. Wheeler, our courteous consulting botanist, who reported it to 

 be that of the Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. Of little or no 

 harm, as the grains eaten are almost wholly waste, and of great econom- 

 ical importance. Both confiding and beautiful, it deserves whatever en- 

 couragement and protection we may be able to give. A brood of Quails 

 which I hatched and reared with a bantam hen, grew to be very tame and 

 kept our vegetable garden entirely free from insects the summer through. 

 (For full notes, see The Oologist, Vol. XI. No. 12 and Vol. XII, No. 1.) 



Tlie Mourning Dove, ZenaUla macroura, I have found once and only 

 once nesting upon the ground in an open field. A few^ bushes growing 

 in a slight hollow had been cut and burned and the ground sown broad- 

 cast to timothy. One little branch lay unburned upon the ground with 

 the grass growing up through it and about two feet from this, where the 

 grass was short and sickly looking, was the nest, built flat upon the 

 ground and composed of a few small twigs and grass stems. The bird 

 was flushed and the two white eggs seen. I understand that in prairie 

 regions this is a common habit of the Mourning Dove, but here where 

 abundance of favorable nesting sites are at hand, it is certainly very 

 curious that this bird should have chosen to spend her time in incubation 

 and rear her brood where any and all the night marauders would be likely 

 to molest her home, and when she had been brought up differently. Food 

 consists of insects, grains, seeds, etc. 



The Marsh Hawk, Circus hutUonius, is the most graceful, most beauti- 

 ful hawk on wing, that is found in our state, and the only representative 

 of the birds of prey, with the possible exception of the Short-eared Owl, 

 found nesting in the open fields. Coming to us late in February or early 

 in March and remaining very late in fall, this bird is almost constantly 



