302 



JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



[Vol. 3 



clean weed seeds was put into a box, which was set inside a larger box, 

 so that any seed scratched out would be caught and all that the birds 

 did not eat, weighed. One gram of each kind of seed was counted. 

 Two birds were used in each feeding test ; they had nothing but green 

 food to eat besides the weed seeds. 



NUMBER OF SEEDS EATEX BY A BOBWHITE IX A DAY 



To quote again from Dr. Judd: 



**A careful computation of the total amount of weed seed the bob- 

 white is capable of destroying is surprising in the magnitude of its 

 result. In the State of Virginia it is safe to assume that from Sep- 

 tember 1 to April 30, the season when the largest proportion of weed 

 seed is consumed by birds, there are four bobwhites to the square 

 mile, or 169,800 in the entire State. The crop of each of these birds 

 will hold half an ounce of seed, and as at each of the two daily meals 

 weed seed constitutes at least half the contents of the crop, or a quar- 

 ter of an ounce, a half ounce daily is certainly consumed by each 

 bird. On this very conservative basis the total consumption of weed 

 seed by bobwhites from September 1 to April 30 in Virginia amounts 

 to 573 tons." (8) 



The following tests were made in order to ascertain how much 

 bobwhites eat each day. 



