130 Next to the Ground 



ready for brooding there may be from ten to 

 fifty eggs in it. Bob White is a rank Mor- 

 mon. He is never content with less than 

 two wives, and oftener has three. The wives 

 lay in the same nest, and take turns with 

 their common lord in brooding the eggs, also 

 in feeding and carrying the young after they 

 are hatched. 



Grass or standing small grain is the favor- 

 ite nest-cover, though Bob White often builds 

 in a blackberry thicket, or a clean hedgerow. 

 A hedge overrun with poison ivy or with bind- 

 weed he will have none of. Neither will he 

 choose one full of rank herbaceous growth. 

 Whatever the seat, the nest itself is no more 

 than a shallow basin scratched in the light 

 earth. There is no pretence of lining it. In- 

 deed the only attempt at architecture is the 

 bending down of green stalks to overarch it 

 and form a little tunnel leading in to it. The 

 tunnel is faintly curved. A nest disturbed ever 

 so slightly when there are but two or three 

 eggs in it will be at once forsaken ; but if it 

 is full to overflowing, the birds keep to it, 

 though people may pass within a yard of it 

 every day. On the whole, Bob White is not 

 averse to human kind. Partridge eggs are 

 sometimes laid in the nests of domestic fowls, 

 especially guinea fowls, which are as prone 

 as themselves to nesting in the fields. 



