M on t h I y B u He tin 7 



WHAT ABOUT BOB WHITE? 



(From the bulletin of the Florida Audubon Society) 



For a period of almost four months of each year the State of Florida 

 permits the inexcusable slaughter of poor bob-white merely to satisfy the 

 brutal instincts and appetite of a lot of so-called "sportsmen," some of 

 whom, in a whole lifetime, do not render as much good service to the 

 state as a single pair of bob-whites do in one year. 



Look up bob-white's bill of fare, which the Biological Survey at 

 Washington has made up from stomach examinations. To say nothing of 

 the 129 species of weed seeds, nearly all of them pests to the farmer, these 

 stomach examinations have shown that these birds devour 145 species of 

 insects, almost all of them destructive to the farmers' crops. Here are some 

 single meals of adult bob-whites: Forty boll weavils, 101 potato bugs, 100 

 chinch bugs, 12 squash bugs, 12 army worms, 12 cut worms and 508 

 mosquitoes in three hours. Other insects eaten include the cucumber 

 beetle, corn bill bug, tobacco worm, cotton boll weevil, snout beetle, 

 grasshoppers, plant lice and flies of many sorts. No wonder that 

 intelligent farmers are posting their lands against bob-white shooters and 

 some of the more prominent agricultural journals are declaring that the 

 killing of bob-white in the name of "sport" is but little short of a crime. 



Nowhere are the services of bob-white of so much value as in the 

 Southern States, in which cotton growing and market gardening are im- 

 portant industries, and nowhere, it is a shame to have to say, are they so 

 wantonly murdered, legally and illegally, by both "sportsmen" and pot 

 hunters. And in no other states are the legal periods of protection so 

 short. 



The following states have already taken these birds from the game 

 list, giving them continuous protection, or closed the shooting season for 

 a period of years: Iowa, Vermont, Utah, Michigan, Nebraska, New York 

 (except Long Island), Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming, while Kansas has cut 

 the open season to ten days and a number of other states to fifteen days. 

 Missouri has given the voters of every county the privilege to say at any 

 general election whether these birds may be hunted during a short open 

 season or protected at all times. Once the value of bob-white is known to 

 the voters few counties will permit them to be killed. 



The bob-white is naturally a sociable bird and will "home" about the 

 house and garden if protected and the domestic cat is controlled. On the 

 Winter Park sanctuary, where these birds have been protected continuously 

 for more than two years, almost every lawn and garden has its little flock, 

 and the better class of citizens have come to love them and give them every 

 possible protection both for their economic and aesthetic values. 



