A BOBWHITE FAMILY 



139 



The kind man passed on, thinking with joy of the partridge 

 family and the good they would do on the farm that sum- 

 mer if mishap did not befall them. He thought of the 

 numbers of harmful insects they would destroy; of the 

 potato bugs they would kill; of the hosts of cutworm 

 moths they would eat ; and the quantities of noxious weed 

 seeds they would consume. ''They are a great blessing to 

 any farm," he said, 

 ''and not one word 

 of evil have I ever 

 heard spoken 

 against them." 



Many are the ^^;; 

 troubles which beset ';' 

 the young birds ' 

 pathway of life. A 



limit has been set upon the undue increase of any species 

 of bird, and this is a law of Nature : The number of young 

 brought into the world by a species varies with the de- 

 structiveness of its natural enemies, and so it is that the 

 robin lays few eggs and the partridge many. The second 

 day out from the nest, one of the little bobwhites was 

 stepped upon by a horse galloping about the pasture. The 

 next day one sickened and died. A third was caught by a 



