Bobwhite 63 



Insect Pests and Quail Coverts. The direct insectivorous value of quail 

 lias been described by Judd (1903) and other ornithologists. 



The value of quail coverts as a harborage for other insectivorous birds and 

 for beneficial insects is probably equally great, but is seldom mentioned. 



There is crying need of controlled experimentation to measure the population 

 density of brush-loving insectivorous birds and their effect on insect pests, first on 

 a "modern" farm and then on the same farm deliberately re- vegetated for the 

 purpose of increasing birds. Bird houses could be used to augment coverts in 

 further increasing the insectivorous bird population. It is hoped that some 

 agricultural college may undertake such an experiment. The cornbelt is the 

 place to do it. Such an experiment would have great educational, as well as 

 economic and scientific value. For one thing, it might teach sportsmen and 

 "protectionists" that they are wasting their time fighting each other, instead of 

 making common cause to preserve wild life environments, without which neither 

 can attain its ends. 



Entomological research is discovering that coverts may harbor the parasites 

 necessary for keeping pests in cherk, as well as the pests themselves. Thus C. L. 

 Fluke, entomologist at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of 

 Wisconsin, finds (1929) that the pea aphid, one of the important enemies of 

 the commercial pea crop, is less numerous in the vicinity of ungrazed woodlots, 

 because such woodlots harbor syrphid flies and lady beetles, which are the natural 

 enemies of the pea aphid, and which keep it in check over a radius of one-eighth 

 to one-fourth miles around each ungrazed woodlot. This newly discovered rela- 

 tionship is possibly typical of other exceptions, yet awaiting discovery, to the 

 hitherto accepted rule that a cleanly grazed woodlot means good farming. It con- 

 stitutes an example of how the requirements of good farming, good forestry, and 

 good game management may after all be identical in many respects. 



Other entomologists are beginning to suspect that the advocacy of "slick and 

 clean" farming by agricultural authorities has been too indiscriminate. Frank N. 

 Wallace, State Entomologist of Indiana, told me it was his opinion that fencerow 

 coverts are beneficial rather than detrimental to Indiana farms; that the birds 

 which find harborage in them control the insect risk to at least the same extent as 

 would be the case if the cover were removed and there were no harborage for 

 either birds or insects. He did not of course intend this as a generalization which 

 would hold good for each and every combination of conditions. The advocates 

 of "slick and clean" farming have generalized too much, and the same error 

 should not now be repeated by conservationists. The present need is for investiga- 

 tions which discriminate which measure the effects of particular covert plants 

 with a particular distribution on particular species of birds, insects, and crops, 

 under specified conditions. Only thus can a rational adjustment between agri- 

 culture and conservation be ultimately worked out. 



One of the most important impending game problems in the north central 

 region is whether the spread of the corn borer will necessitate cutting cornstalks 



