202 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
BOB-WHITE 
““T own the country hereabout,” says Bob-white ; 
“At early morn I gayly shout, ‘I’m Bob-white!’ 
From stubble-field and stake-rail fence 
You hear me call without offence, 
‘I’m Bob-white ! Bob-white !’ 
Sometimes I think I’ll nevermore say Bob-white; 
It often gives me quite away, does Bob-white ; 
And mate and I, and our young brood, 
When separate, wandering through the wood, 
Are killed by sportsmen I invite 
By my clear voice — ‘ Bob-white ! Bob-white !’ 
Still, don’t you find I’m out of sight 
While I am saying ‘ Bob-white, Bob-white’?”’ 
— CHARLES C. MARBLE. 
“They rested in the orchard bushes and the edge of 
brush-lots, so that I was as sure of seeing broods of little 
Quail as of our own little barnyard chicks. In the autumn 
they seemed to know about the hunting as soon as a gun 
was fired in the distance; then they grew shy, but by 
Christmas the survivors, and they were many, would 
come about the hay barns for food as familiarly as the 
tree-trunk birds come to the lunch-counter, and I have 
seen them eating cracked corn with the fowls in the barn- 
yard. 
“Not only is Bob-white a beautiful object in the land- 
scape, when he sits on a fence top overlooking the fields, but 
his voice is a delight to the ear, when he either tells his 
own name, or gives the beseeching ‘covey call,’ in autumn, 
to gather his scattered flock for the night. Then, on the 
more useful or material side of the question, not only is 
