210 BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST. 



diet consists of worms and insects. Good observers who 

 have watched them here testify to the truth of this asser- 

 tion. They do, in fact, consume but little corn or grain at 

 any season, save when they cannot find a suflticient supply 

 of insect food. When associated in such vast tiocks as 

 described by Wilson, they are necessarily granivorous. 



THE QUAIL. 



I have not yet seen any good reason for denying that 

 the Quail is a Quail ; nor can I understand why, in the 

 new classifications of birds, the marks that formerly char- 

 acterized species are now used to characterize genera. Let 

 us pursue the same philosophical rule to its final results, 

 and we shall arrive at the discovery that the different 

 varieties of the common fowl constitute so many genera, 

 and that the black and the white and the Seebright/Ban- 

 tarns, for example, are species of the genus Gallijmrvus. 

 But the Quail, wliether it be itself or another bird, is 

 now a rare inhabitant of New England. Thousands of its 

 species were destroyed by the deep snows of the winter 

 of 1856-57, and again by the cold winter of 1867-68. 

 Indeed, 'every winter destroys great numbers of them. 

 And as the Quail does not migrate, and never wanders 

 any great distance from its birthplace, I cannot under- 

 stand why its species could ever have been numerous 

 so far north as the New England States, unless the vast 

 numbers rendered it impossible for any accident of Nature 

 to destroy so many that there should not be nudtitudes 

 left. But since the white man came, the gun, the snare, 

 and the winters united have nearly extirpated the whole 

 race. 



For many years past I have seldom heard the mu.sical 

 voice of the Quail. Seldom is the haymaker in these 

 days reminded of the approach of showers by his procla- 



